Related papers: Stellar Collisions and Black Hole Formation in Den…
The origin of supermassive black holes is an open question that has been explored considering gas- and collision-based formation channels to explain the high number of quasars observed in the early Universe. According to numerical…
I describe the current state of our knowledge of the mapping between the initial masses of stars and the compact objects -- particularly neutron stars and black holes -- that they produce. Most of that knowledge is theoretical in nature,…
Stellar-remnant black holes (BH) in dense stellar clusters comprise a natural setup to trigger general-relativistic (GR) inspiral and merger of binary black holes (BBH), detectable by the LISA and the LIGO-Virgo, through dynamical…
Super-massive black holes, with masses larger than a million times that of the Sun, appear to inhabit the centers of all massive galaxies. Cosmologically-motivated theories of galaxy formation need feedback from these super-massive black…
Recent observations and hydrodynamical simulations of star formation inside a giant molecular cloud have revealed that, within a star forming region, stars do not form evenly distributed throughout this region, but rather in small…
Using state-of-the-art dynamical simulations of globular clusters, including radiation reaction during black hole encounters and a cosmological model of star cluster formation, we create a realistic population of dynamically-formed binary…
Mergers of black-hole binaries are expected to release large amounts of energy in the form of gravitational radiation. However, binary evolution models predict merger rates too low to be of observational interest. In this paper we explore…
In a star cluster with a sufficiently large escape velocity, black holes (BHs) that are produced by BH mergers can be retained, dynamically form new BH binaries, and merge again. This process can repeat several times and lead to significant…
Intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) could form via runaway merging of massive stars in a young massive star cluster (YMC). We combine a suite of numerical simulations of YMC formation with a semi-analytic model for dynamical friction and…
How starburst clusters form out of molecular clouds is still an open question. In this article, I highlight some of the key constraints in this regard, that one can get from the dynamical evolutionary properties of dense stellar systems. I…
Theory and observations suggest that single-star evolution is not able to produce black holes (BHs) with masses in the range $3-5M_{\odot}$ and above $\sim 45M_{\odot}$, referred to as the lower mass gap (LMG) and the upper mas gap (UMG),…
Our current understanding of the stellar initial mass function and massive star evolution suggests that young globular clusters may have formed hundreds to thousands of stellar-mass black holes, the remnants of stars with initial masses…
In this paper we present the results of two detailed N-body simulations of the interaction of a sample of four massive globular clusters in the inner region of a triaxial galaxy. A full merging of the clusters takes place, leading to a…
In a dense stellar environment, such as the core of a globular cluster (GC), dynamical interactions with black holes (BHs) are expected to lead to a variety of astrophysical transients. Here we explore tidal disruption events (TDEs) of…
Numerical simulations have established that star clusters with densities comparable to the high redshift ($z>6$-$10$) James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) proto globular clusters may build up extremely massive (EMSs; $m_\mathrm{\star}>1000…
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…
We study how runaway stellar collisions in high-redshift, metal-poor star clusters form very massive stars (VMSs) that can directly collapse to intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs). We follow the evolution of a pair of neighbouring…
Mass segregation is seen in many star clusters, but whether massive stars form in the center of a cluster or migrate there dynamically is still debated. N-body simulations have shown that early dynamical mass segregation is possible when…
This is a pedagogical review of recent results on the interactions of central massive black holes with stars very near them, focused on the black hole in the center of the Milky Way. Table of contents: [1] Introduction [2] Stellar dynamics…
Galaxy interactions and mergers play a significant, but still debated and poorly understood role in the star formation history of galaxies. Numerical and theoretical models cannot yet explain the main properties of merger-induced…