Related papers: Black Holes in Massive Star Clusters
A promising mechanism to form intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) is the runaway merger in dense star clusters, where main-sequence stars collide and form a very massive star (VMS), which then collapses to a black hole. In this paper we…
Current stellar evolution models predict a dearth of black holes (BHs) with masses $\gtrsim 50$ M$_\odot$ and $\lesssim 5$ M$_\odot$, and intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs; $\sim10^2- 10^5$ M$_\odot$) have not yet been detected beyond…
In low-metallicity environments, massive stars might avoid supernova explosion and directly collapse, forming massive (~25-80 solar masses) stellar black holes (MSBHs), at the end of their life. MSBHs, when hosted in young massive clusters,…
From the results of numerical scattering experiments and simulations of a massive black hole binary in spherically symmetric and shallow cores it has been deduced that most likely the shrinking process stalls due to loss-cone depletion…
The correlation between the mass of supermassive black holes in galaxy nuclei and the mass of the galaxy spheroids or bulges (or more precisely their central velocity dispersion), suggests a common formation scenario for galaxies and their…
The hierarchical build-up of galactic bulges should lead to the build-up of present-day supermassive black holes by a mixture of gas accretion and merging of supermassive black holes. The tight relation between black hole mass and stellar…
In the standard picture of stellar evolution, pair-instability -- the energy loss in stellar cores due to electron-positron pair production -- is predicted to prevent the collapse of massive stars into black holes with mass in the range…
Centers of galaxies host both a supermassive black hole and a dense stellar cluster. Such an environment should lead to stellar collisions, possibly at very high velocities so that the total energy involved is of the same order as…
We explore a newly proposed channel to create binary black holes of stellar origin. This scenario applies to massive, tight binaries where mixing induced by rotation and tides transports the products of hydrogen burning throughout the…
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…
Nuclear star clusters (NSCs) and supermassive black holes (SMBHs) both inhabit galactic nuclei, coexisting in a range of bulge masses, but excluding each other in the largest or smallest galaxies. We propose that the transformation of NSCs…
The centers of most galaxies contain massive black holes surrounded by dense star clusters. The structure of these clusters determines the rate and properties of observable transient events, such as flares from tidally disrupted stars and…
Stars form in dense, clustered environments, where feedback from newly formed stars eventually ejects the gas, terminating star formation and leaving behind one or more star clusters. Using the STARFORGE simulations, it is possible to…
We simulate mergers between galaxies containing collisionally-relaxed nuclei around massive black holes (MBHs). Our galaxies contain four mass groups, representative of old stellar populations; a primary goal is to understand the…
The formation of compact objects like stars and black holes is strongly constrained by the requirement that nearly all of the initial angular momentum of the diffuse material from which they form must be removed or redistributed during the…
Globular star clusters contain thousands to millions of old stars packed within a region only tens of light years across. Their high stellar densities make it very probable that their member stars will interact or collide. There has been…
Observations suggest that star clusters often form in binaries or larger bound groups. Therefore, mergers between two clusters are likely to occur. If these clusters both harbor an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH; 10^{2-4} Msun) in their…
Determining the final result of black hole-neutron star mergers, and in particular the amount of matter remaining outside the black hole at late times and its properties, has been one of the main motivations behind the numerical simulation…
We study the statistics and cosmic evolution of massive black hole seeds formed during major mergers of gas-rich late-type galaxies. Generalizing the results of the hydro-simulations from Mayer et al. 2010, we envision a scenario in which a…
Observations of gravitational waves and their electromagnetic counterparts may soon uncover the existence of coalescing compact binary systems formed by a stellar-mass black hole and a neutron star. These mergers result in a remnant black…