Related papers: Escape in Hill's Problem
Extreme mass-ratio inspirals, in which solar-mass compact bodies spiral into supermassive black holes, are an important potential source for gravitational wave detectors. Because of the extreme mass-ratio, one can model these systems using…
Atmospheric escape is now considered the major contributing factor in shaping the demographic of detected exoplanets. However, inferences about the exoplanet populations strongly depend on the accuracy of the models. Direct observational…
Determining star cluster distances is essential to analyse their properties and distribution in the Galaxy. In particular it is desirable to have a reliable, purely photometric distance estimation method for large samples of newly…
Based on our recent work on tidal tails of star clusters (Kuepper et al. 2009) we investigate star clusters of a few 10^4 Msun by means of velocity dispersion profiles and surface density profiles. We use a comprehensive set of $N$-body…
This review discusses (i) dynamical methods for determining the masses of Galactic and extragalactic star clusters, (ii) dynamical processes and their time-scales for the evolution of clusters, including evaporation, mass segregation, core…
Astronomers have constructed models of globular clusters for over 100 years. These models mainly fall into two categories: (i) static models, such as King's model and its variants, and (ii) evolutionary models. Most attention has been given…
A comparison of escape rates from one and from two holes in an experimental container (e.g. a laser trap) can be used to obtain information about the dynamics inside the container. If this dynamics is simple enough one can hope to obtain…
The population of known low- to intermediate-mass exoplanets shows a large spread in densities, which is believed to be due to the diversity of planetary atmospheres and thus controlled by planetary atmospheric mass loss. One of the main…
Stellar clusters are critical constituents within galaxies: they are the result of highest-density star formation, and through their spatially and temporally correlated feedback they regulate their host galaxy evolution. We present a novel…
In hierarchical clustering, galaxy clusters accrete mass through the aggregation of smaller systems. Thus, the velocity field of the infall regions of clusters contains significant random motion superimposed on radial infall. Because the…
Dense stellar systems such as globular clusters, galactic nuclei and nuclear star clusters are ideal loci to study stellar dynamics due to the very high densities reached, usually a million times higher than in the solar neighborhood; they…
We investigate encounters between giant molecular clouds (GMCs) and star clusters. We propose a single expression for the energy gain of a cluster due to an encounter with a GMC, valid for all encounter distances and GMC properties. This…
The known extrasolar multiple-planet systems share a surprising dynamical attribute: they cluster just beyond the Hill stability boundary. Here we show that the planet-planet scattering model, which naturally explains the observed exoplanet…
The probability that an exoplanet transits its host star is high for planets in close orbits, but drops off rapidly for increasing semimajor axes. This makes transit surveys for planets with large semimajor axes orbiting bright stars…
Observational advances over the last decade reveal that star formation is associated with the simultaneous presence of gravitationally collapsing gas, bipolar outflow, and an accretion disk. Two theoretical views of star formation suppose…
In this paper we discuss an alternative track for migration that can explain the existence of Hot Jupiters observed in close orbits around their stars based on a novel interpretation of established work. We also discuss the population of…
We have investigated the possibilities to quantify how much stars move in the Milky Way stellar disk due to diffuse processes (i.e. so called blurring) and due to influences from spiral arms and the bar (i.e. so called churning). To this…
How starburst clusters form out of molecular clouds is still an open question. In this article, I highlight some of the key constraints in this regard, that one can get from the dynamical evolutionary properties of dense stellar systems. I…
Context. Stars tend to form in clusters, but many escape their birth clusters very early. Identifying the escaped members of clusters can inform us about the dissolution of star clusters, but also about the stellar dynamics in the galaxy.…
We study the possible rotation of cluster galaxies, developing, testing and applying a novel algorithm which identifies rotation, if such does exist, as well as its rotational centre, its axis orientation, rotational velocity amplitude and,…