Related papers: Core Formation by a Population of Massive Remnants
It is assumed that a galaxy starts as a dark halo of a few million Jeans clusters (JCs), each of which consists of nearly a trillion micro brown dwarfs, MACHOs of Earth mass. JCs in the galaxy center heat up their MACHOs by tidal forces,…
The radii of young (<100 Myr) star clusters correlate only weakly with their masses. This shallow relation has been used to argue that impulsive tidal perturbations, or `shocks', by passing giant molecular clouds (GMCs) preferentially…
Context. The fragmentation of massive molecular clumps into smaller, potentially star-forming cores plays a key role in the processes of high-mass star formation. The ALMAGAL project offers high-resolution data to investigate these…
The centers of stellar spheroids are often marked by the presence of nucleated central regions, called nuclear star clusters (NSCs). The origin of NSCs is still unclear. Here we investigate the possibility that NSCs originate from the…
Collisions and mergers of gas-rich galaxies trigger bursts of star and cluster formation. Of the thousands of clusters typically formed during a major merger, only the most massive and compact survive for Gigayears as globular clusters…
Stars and star clusters form by gravoturbulent fragmentation of interstellar gas clouds. The supersonic turbulence ubiquitously observed in Galactic molecular gas generates strong density fluctuations with gravity taking over in the densest…
In about 40% of the Local Group galaxies star clusters have been detected so far, but the census is still incomplete. The properties of these clusters are briefly reviewed, and the impact of galaxy environment on the evolution and survival…
The origin of the population of very massive stars observed within $\sim 0.4$ pc of the supermassive black hole in the Galactic Centre is a mystery. Tidal forces from the black hole would likely inhibit {\it in situ} star formation whilst…
We study the growth rate of stars via stellar collisions in dense star clusters, calibrating our analytic calculations with direct N-body simulations of up to 65536 stars, performed on the GRAPE family of special-purpose computers. We find…
We investigate how the properties of massive black hole binaries influence the observed properties of core galaxies. We compare the observed trend in stellar mass deficit as a function of total stellar mass in the core galaxy with predicted…
Globular clusters (GCs) are thought to be ancient relics from the early formative phase of galaxies, although their physical origin remains uncertain. GCs are most numerous around massive elliptical galaxies, where they can exhibit a broad…
Massive black holes have been discovered in all closely examined galaxies with high velocity dispersion. The case is not as clear for lower-dispersion systems such as low-mass galaxies and globular clusters. Here we suggest that above a…
High-mass stars and star clusters form from the fragmentation of massive dense clumps driven by gravity, turbulence, and magnetic fields. The ALMAGAL project observed $\sim1000$ clumps at $\sim$1000\,au resolution, enabling a statistically…
Nuclear star clusters are among the densest stellar systems known and are common in both early- and late-type galaxies. They exhibit scaling relations with their host galaxy which may be related to those of supermassive black holes. These…
Stars form by gravoturbulent fragmentation of interstellar gas clouds. The supersonic turbulence ubiquitously observed in Galactic molecular gas generates strong density fluctuations with gravity taking over in the densest and most massive…
Interacting galaxies often have complexes of hundreds of young stellar clusters of individual masses $\sim 10^{4-6}~M_\odot$ in regions that are a few hundred parsecs across. These cluster complexes interact dynamically, and their…
Observations of globular clusters show that they have universal lognormal mass functions with a characteristic peak at $\sim 2\times 10^{5}\, {\rm{M_{\odot}}}$, but the origin of this peaked distribution is highly debated. Here we…
Nuclear stellar cluster (NSCs) are known to exist around massive black holes (MBHs) in galactic nuclei. Two formation scenarios were suggested for their origin: (1) Build-up of NSCs from consecutive infall of stellar cluster and (2)…
We present a model for the formation of massive black holes ($\sim 1000 \msun$) due to stellar-dynamical processes in the first stellar clusters formed at early cosmic times ($z\sim10-20$). The high redshift black hole seeds form as a…
In the present-day universe, it appears that most, and perhaps all, massive stars are born in star clusters. It also appears that all star clusters contain stars drawn from an approximately universal initial mass function, so that almost…