Related papers: Predicting intermediate-mass black hole formation …
We explore the properties of dense star clusters that are likely to be the nurseries of stellar black holes pairing in close binaries. We combine a cosmological model of globular cluster formation with analytic prescriptions for the…
Theory and observations suggest that single-star evolution is not able to produce black holes (BHs) with masses in the range $3-5M_{\odot}$ and above $\sim 45M_{\odot}$, referred to as the lower mass gap (LMG) and the upper mas gap (UMG),…
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…
We have determined the masses and mass-to-light ratios of 50 Galactic globular clusters by comparing their velocity dispersion and surface brightness profiles against a large grid of 900 N-body simulations of star clusters of varying…
Intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) in the mass range $10^2-10^5\,\mathrm{M_{\odot}}$ bridge the gap between stellar black holes (BHs) and supermassive BHs. Here, we investigate the possibility that IMBHs form in young star clusters via…
We study the early dynamical evolution of young, dense star clusters using Monte Carlo simulations for systems with up to N~10^7 stars. Rapid mass segregation of massive main-sequence stars and the development of the Spitzer instability can…
Recent observations suggest the presence of supermassive black holes at the centers of many galaxies. The existence of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) in globular clusters has also been predicted. We focus on gravitational lensing as…
For a sample of nine Galactic globular clusters we measured the inner kinematic profiles with integral-field spectroscopy that we combined with existing outer kinematic measurements and HST luminosity profiles. With this information we are…
Intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) are believed to be the missing link between the supermassive black holes (BHs) found at the centers of massive galaxies and BHs formed through stellar core collapse. One of the proposed mechanisms for…
Supermassive black holes and/or very dense stellar clusters are found in the central regions of galaxies. Nuclear star clusters are present mainly in faint galaxies while upermassive black holes are common in galaxies with masses $\geq…
Observations and high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations indicate that massive star clusters assemble hierarchically from sub-clusters with a universal power-law cluster mass function. We study the consequences of such assembly for the…
Recent observations of globular clusters (GCs) provide evidence that the stellar initial mass function (IMF) may not be universal, suggesting specifically that the IMF grows increasingly top-heavy with decreasing metallicity and increasing…
Repeated mergers of stellar-mass black holes (BHs) in dense star clusters can produce intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs). In particular, nuclear star clusters at the centers of galaxies have deep enough potential wells to retain most of…
Machine learning is a powerful technique, becoming increasingly popular in astrophysics. In this paper, we apply machine learning to more than a thousand globular cluster (GC) models simulated as part of the 'MOCCA-Survey Database I'…
Black holes (BHs) with masses between 100 to 100,000 times the mass of the Sun ($\rm{M}_{\odot}$) are classified as intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs), potentially representing a crucial link between stellar-mass and supermassive BHs.…
Contrary to supermassive and stellar-mass black holes (SBHs), the existence of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) with masses ranging between 10^{2-5} Msun has not yet been confirmed. The main problem in the detection is that the…
The runaway collision scenario is one of the most promising mechanisms to explain the formation of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) in young dense star clusters. On the other hand, the massive stars that participate in the runaway…
The mass range of observed black holes extends from stellar-mass to supermassive scales, yet the existence of objects in the intermediate-mass range of $10^{2} - 10^{5} \text{M}_{\odot}$ remains unconfirmed. Black holes are suspected to…
We performed a series of direct N-body simulations with the aim to follow the dynamical evolution of a galaxy cluster (GC) ($M_{clus}\simeq 10^{14} M_{\odot}$) in different environment. The results show the formation of heavy sub-structures…
We investigate the possibility that present-day galactic haloes contain a population of massive black holes (MBHs) that form by hierarchical merging of the black hole remnants of the first stars. Some of the MBHs may be large enough or…