Related papers: A secondary orbiter under collisions with an accre…
Gas accretion of embedded stellar-mass black holes\,(sBHs) or stars in the accretion disk of active galactic nuclei\,(AGNs) will modify the mass distribution of these sBHs and stars, which will also affect the migration of the sBHs/stars.…
We address the orbital distribution of stars in merging nuclear star clusters (NSCs) and the subsequent effects on supermassive black hole binary (SMBHB) evolution. We ran direct-summation $N$-body simulations with different initial…
We follow the sinking of two massive black holes in a spherical stellar system where the black holes become bound under the influence of dynamical friction. Once bound, the binary hardens by three-body encounters with surrounding stars. We…
Stellar collisions in dense galactic nuclei might play an important role in fueling supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and shaping their environments. The gas released during these collisions can contribute to SMBH accretion, influencing…
Stars evolving around a supermassive black hole see their orbital orientations diffuse efficiently, a process called "vector resonant relaxation". In particular, stars within the same disc, i.e. neighbors in orientations, will slowly…
An accreting massive black hole (MBH) in a galactic nucleus is surrounded by a dense stellar cluster. We analyze and simulate numerically the evolution of a thin accretion disk due to its internal viscous torques, due to the frame-dragging…
We classify orbits of stars that are bound to central black holes in galactic nuclei. The stars move under the combined gravitational influences of the black hole and the central star cluster. Within the sphere of influence of the black…
The center of our Galaxy is known to host a massive compact object, Sgr A$^*$, which is commonly considered as a super-massive black hole of $\sim 4\times 10^6$ M$_\odot$. It is surrounded by a dense and massive nuclear star cluster, with a…
A massive black hole (MBH) consumes stars whose orbits evolve into the small phase-space volume of unstable orbits, the "loss-cone", which take them directly into the MBH, or close enough to interact strongly with it. The resulting…
Nuclear star clusters (NSCs) are dense stellar clusters observed in galactic nuclei, typically hosting a central massive black hole. Here we study the possible formation and evolution of NSCs through the inspiral of multiple star clusters…
The density of stars in galactic bulges is often observed to be flat or slowly rising inside the influence radius of the supermassive black hole (SMBH). Attributing the dynamical friction force to stars moving more slowly than the test…
The recently confirmed correlation between the mass of SMBH and bulges of galaxies (and their central velocity dispersion), suggest a common formation scenario for galaxies and their central black holes. Common fueling can be invoked…
By using direct N-body numerical simulations, we model the dynamical co-evolution of two supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and the surrounding stars in merging galaxies. In order to investigate how different stellar components evolve during…
We investigate a hierarchical structure formation scenario in which galaxy stellar cores are created from the binding energy liberated by shrinking supermassive black hole (SMBH) binaries. The binary orbital decay heats the surrounding…
The close neighbourhood of a supermassive black hole contains not only accreting gas and dust, but also stellar-sized objects like stars, stellar-mass black holes, neutron stars, and dust-enshrouded objects that altogether form a dense…
We study the dynamical evolution of a stellar disk orbiting a massive black hole. We explore the role of two-body relaxation, mass segregation, stellar evolution and binary heating in affecting the disk evolution, and consider the impact of…
In our current interpretation of the hierarchical structure of the universe it is well established that galaxies collide and merge with each other during their lifetime. If massive black holes (MBHs) reside in galactic centres, we expect…
The dense, clustered environment in which massive stars form can lead to interactions with neighboring stars. It has been hypothesized that collisions and mergers may contribute to the growth of the most massive stars. In this paper we…
There is compelling evidence that most -if not all- galaxies harbour a super-massive black hole (SMBH) at their nucleus, hence binaries of these massive objects are an inevitable product of the hierarchical evolution of structures in the…
The study of how stars distribute themselves around a massive black hole (MBH) in the center of a galaxy is an important prerequisite for the understanding of many galactic-center processes. These include the observed overabundance of point…