Related papers: The Initial Mass Function in the Galactic Center
Understanding the processes that determine the stellar Initial Mass Function (IMF) is a critical unsolved problem, with profound implications for many areas of astrophysics. In molecular clouds, stars are formed in cores, gas condensations…
Stars are most likely to merge or collide in regions of the highest stellar densities, and our own Galactic Center contains many stars packed into a relatively small volume -- even the ambient stellar number density in the central 50 pc is…
We explore the potential cumulative energy production of stellar mass black holes in early galaxies. Stellar mass black holes may accrete substantially from the higher density interstellar media of primordial galaxies, and their energy…
Numerical simulations of a Milky Way-size galaxy demonstrate that globular clusters with the properties similar to observed can form naturally at z > 3 in the concordance Lambda-CDM cosmology. The clusters in our model form in the strongly…
We consider the structure of self-gravitating marginally stable accretion disks in galactic centers in which a small fraction of the disk mass has been converted into proto-stars. We find that proto-stars accrete gaseous disk matter at…
We summarize some of the results obtained from Herschel surveys of the nearby star forming regions and the Galactic plane. We show that in the nearby star forming regions the starless core spatial surface density distribution is very…
At a distance of 8 kpc only, the center of the Galaxy provides a unique testbed for studies about the physics of the interstellar medium and star formation in the nuclei of galaxies. Since it shares many properties of other, more…
Starbursts produce large numbers of Young Star Clusters (YSCs). Multi-color photometry in combination with a dedicated SED analysis tool allows to derive ages, metallicities, ${\rm E_{B-V}}$, and masses including $1 \sigma$ uncertainties…
The evidence for the presence of a concentration of dark matter at the Galactic center is now very compelling. There is no question that the stellar and gas kinematics within 0.01 pc is dominated by under-luminous matter in the form of…
The central dominant galaxies in galaxy clusters constitute the most massive and luminous galaxies in the Universe. Despite this, the formation of these brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) and the impact of this on the surrounding cluster…
The young stars near the supermassive black hole at the galactic center follow orbits that are nearly random in orientation and that have an approximately thermal distribution of eccentricities, N(e) ~ e. We show that both of these…
A brief overview of the properties of massive star clusters in early-type galaxies is given. All ellipticals (with only one known exception) host massive star clusters in the form of globular clusters, suggesting that their formation is…
We point out that a high number density of stars in the core of a dense star cluster such as the central stellar cluster at the Galactic center, where many stars possess strong stellar winds, should result in collisions of those winds. The…
The history of star formation in the strong gravitational potential of the Galactic center has been of much interest, recently. We propose that the sub-parsec-scale disk of massive stars orbiting the massive black hole at the Galactic…
Young massive clusters (YMCs) are the most intense regions of star formation in galaxies. Formulating a model for YMC formation whilst at the same time meeting the constraints from observations is highly challenging however. We show that…
We propose and investigate a new formation mechanism for globular clusters in which they form within molecular clouds that are formed in the shocked regions created by galactic winds driven by successive supernova explosions shortly after…
The study of the very young open cluster NGC 6231 clearly shows the presence of a mass segregation for the most massive stars. These observations, combined with those concerning other young objects and very recent numerical simulations,…
It is well known that the energy input from massive stars dominates the thermal and mechanical heating of typical regions in the interstellar medium of galaxies. These effects are amplified tremendously in the immediate environment of young…
There has been recent speculation (Davies & King 2005) that the cores of intermediate-mass stars stripped of their envelopes by tidal interaction with the supermassive black hole in the Galactic centre could form a population…
We consider the dynamical evolution of a disk of stars orbiting a central black hole. In particular, we focus on the effect of the stellar mass function on the evolution of the disk, using both analytic arguments and numerical simulations.…