Related papers: Stellar Dynamics at the Galactic Center with an Ex…
The angular momentum evolution of stars close to massive black holes (MBHs) is driven by secular torques. In contrast to two-body relaxation, where interactions between stars are incoherent, the resulting resonant relaxation (RR) process is…
Internal dynamical evolution can drive stellar systems into states of high central density. For many star clusters and galactic nuclei, the time scale on which this occurs is significantly less than the age of the universe. As a result,…
Most galaxies are hosted by massive, invisible dark matter haloes, yet little is known about the scatter in the stellar mass--halo mass relation for galaxies with host halo masses $M_{h}\le 10^{11}M_{\odot}$. Using mock catalogues based on…
[abridged] Energy relaxation around a massive black hole (MBH) is key to establishing the dynamical state of galactic nuclei, and the nature of close stellar interactions with the MBH. The standard description of relaxation as diffusion…
The capability of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) to image the nearest supermassive black hole candidates at horizon-scale resolutions offers a novel means to study gravity in its strongest regimes and to test different models for these…
We show that the disruption of a star by a 10^6 solar mass black hole in a galactic nucleus could under favorable circumstances produce an optically-thick envelope that radiates with a thermal spectrum at the Eddington limit, 10^{44} erg/s,…
We report a factor of $\sim$3 improvement in Keck Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics (LGSAO) astrometric measurements of stars near the Galaxy's supermassive black hole (SMBH). By carrying out a systematic study of M92, we have produced a…
Quantitative spectroscopy of O-type stars in galaxies beyond 1 Mpc requires the unprecedented sensitivity of the so-called Extremely Large Telescopes. Visible spectroscopy with these exciting new facilities will give us the first chance to…
In the vicinity of a massive black hole, stars move on precessing Keplerian orbits. The mutual stochastic gravitational torques between the stellar orbits drive a rapid reorientation of their orbital planes, through a process called vector…
We analyze three sets of infrared star counts in the inner ~0.5 pc of the Galactic Center. We perform statistical tests on the star counts and model in detail the extinction field and the effects of dwarf-giant collisions on the luminosity…
The S-stars discovered in the Galactic center (GC) are expected to provide unique dynamical tests of the Kerr metric of the massive black hole (MBH) orbited by them. In order to obtain unbiased measurements of its spin and the related…
We analyze data from the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys of the globular cluster Omega Cen. We construct a photometric and proper-motion catalog using the GO-9442, GO-10252, and GO-10775 data sets. The 2.5- to 4-year…
We present a new constraint on the mass of the black hole in the active S0 galaxy NGC 5273. Due to the proximity of the galaxy at $16.6 \pm 2.1$ Mpc, we were able to resolve and extract the bulk motions of stars near the central black hole…
In the past three decades, many stars orbiting about the supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the Galactic Centre (Sgr A*) were identified. Their orbital nature can give stringent constraints for the mass of the SMBH. In particular, the star…
In this Letter, we demonstrate that short-period stars orbiting around the supermassive black hole in our Galactic Center can successfully be used to probe the gravitational theory in a strong regime. We use 19 years of observations of the…
Supermassive black holes dominate the gravitational potential in galactic nuclei. In these dense environments, stars follow nearly Keplerian orbits and see their orbital planes relax through the potential fluctuations generated by the…
We report on the first results from a large-scale observing campaign aiming to use astrometric microlensing to detect and place limits on the mass of single objects, including stellar remnants. We used the Hubble Space Telescope to monitor…
Structure of a quasi-stationary stellar cluster is modelled assuming that it is embedded in the gravitational field of a super-massive black hole. Gradual orbital decay of stellar trajectories is caused by the dissipative interaction with…
We have searched for and estimated the possible gravitational influence of dark matter in the Solar system based on the EPM2011 planetary ephemerides using about 677 thousand positional observations of planets and spacecraft. Most of the…
Close encounters between neutron stars and main-sequence stars occur in globular clusters and may lead to various outcomes. Here we study encounters resulting in tidal disruption of the star. Using $N$-body models, we predict the typical…