Related papers: Loss Cone Refilling Rates in Galactic Nuclei
Massive binary black holes form at the centre of galaxies that experience a merger episode. They are expected to coalesce into a larger black hole, following the emission of gravitational waves. Coalescing massive binary black holes are…
The tidal disruption of a star by a supermassive black hole is expected to lead to a short bright flare followed by an extended period of low-level emission. Existing models of the late-time accretion of the stellar debris via a thin disk…
Tidal disruption events occur rarely in any individual galaxy. Over the last decade, however, time-domain surveys have begun to accumulate statistical samples of these flares. What dynamical processes are responsible for feeding stars to…
We study the number and interaction rates of supermassive black holes in galactic bulges as predicted by hierarchical models of galaxy formation in which the spheroidal components of galaxies are formed by mergers. In bright ellipticals,…
The highly disturbed hot gas in elliptical galaxies, as revealed in many {\em Chandra} X-ray images, implies a source of energy in the galactic nucleus. In some elliptical galaxies faint X-ray ``ghost'' cavities appear without corresponding…
The overabundance of Mg relative to Fe, observed in the nuclei of bright ellipticals, and its increase with galactic mass, poses a serious problem for all current models of galaxy formation. Here we improve on the one-zone chemical…
Supermassive black holes inhabit galactic nuclei, and their presence influences in crucial ways the evolution of the stellar distribution. The low-density cores observed in bright galaxies are probably a result of black hole infall, while…
This paper focuses on the dynamical implications of close supermassive black hole binaries both as an example of resonant phase mixing and as a potential explanation of inversions and other anomalous features observed in the luminosity…
Massive central objects affect both the structure and evolution of galactic nuclei. Adiabatic growth of black holes generates power-law central density profiles with logarithmic slopes in the range from ~1.5 to ~2.5, in good agreement with…
A supermassive black hole in the nucleus of a galaxy will be revealed when a star passes close enough to be torn apart by tidal forces and a flare of radiation is emitted by the stream of stellar debris that plunges into the black hole.…
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…
We estimate the rate at which stars are captured by supermassive black holes (BHs) in the centres of bulges and elliptical galaxies assuming that these initially had an isothermal cusp (rho ~ r^{-2} with velocity dispersion sigma_*). If…
The disruption of a star by the tidal field of a massive black hole is the final outcome of a chain of complex dynamical processes in the host galaxy. I introduce the "loss cone problem", and describe the many theoretical and numerical…
The importance of the radiative feedback from massive black holes at the centers of elliptical galaxies is not in doubt, given the well established relations among electromagnetic output, black hole mass and galaxy optical luminosity. We…
We suggest that most nearby active galactic nuclei are fed by a series of small--scale, randomly--oriented accretion events. Outside a certain radius these events promote rapid star formation, while within it they fuel the supermassive…
Stellar models indicate that the core compactness of a star, which is a common proxy for its explodability in a supernova, does not increase monotonically with the star's mass. Rather, the core compactness dips sharply over a range of…
Gravitational waves from the coalescence of binary black holes carry away linear momentum, causing center of mass recoil. This "radiation rocket" effect has important implications for systems with escape speeds of order the recoil velocity.…
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…
Globular cluster systems evolve, in galaxies, due to internal and external dynamics and tidal phenomena. One of the causes of evolution, dynamical friction, is responsible for the orbital decay of massive clusters into the innermost…
An algorithm is described for evolving the phase-space density of stars or compact objects around a massive black hole at the center of a galaxy. The technique is based on numerical integration of the Fokker-Planck equation in…