Related papers: Constraints on the Stellar Mass Function from Stel…
We present a new directly-observable statistic which uses sky position and proper motion of stars near the Galactic center massive black hole to identify populations with high orbital eccentricities. It is most useful for stars with large…
We use N-body simulations to study the evolution of the orbital eccentricities of stars deposited near (<0.05 pc) the Milky Way massive black hole (MBH), starting from initial conditions motivated by two competing models for their origin:…
The evolution of circumstellar discs is influenced by their surroundings. The relevant processes include external photoevaporation due to nearby stars, and dynamical truncations. The impact of these processes on disc populations depends on…
Observations of the Galactic Centre show evidence of disc-like structures of very young stars orbiting the central super-massive black hole within a distance of a few 0.1 pc. While it is widely accepted that about half of the stars form a…
A theory is developed for the dynamics of eccentric perturbations $[\propto \exp(\pm i\phi)]$ of a disk galaxy residing in a spherical dark matter halo and including a spherical bulge component. The disk is represented as a large number $N$…
We investigate the dynamical interaction of a central star cluster surrounding a super-massive black hole and a central accretion disk. The dissipative force acting on stars in the disk leads to an enhanced mass flow towards the…
The dense concentration of stars and high velocity dispersions in the Galactic centre imply that stellar collisions frequently occur. Stellar collisions could therefore result in significant mass loss rates. We calculate the amount of…
We consider the structure of self-gravitating marginally stable accretion disks in galactic centers in which a small fraction of the disk mass has been converted into proto-stars. We find that proto-stars accrete gaseous disk matter at…
We study the effects of black hole dark matter on the dynamical evolution of stars in dwarf galaxies. We find that mass segregation leads to a depletion of stars in the center of dwarf galaxies and the appearance of a ring in the projected…
In this paper we revisit the "eccentric disc instability", an instability which occurs in coherently eccentric discs of stars orbiting massive black holes (MBHs) embedded in stellar clusters, which results in stars achieving either very…
We postulate that most stars are born in aggregates of binary systems which are dynamically equivalent to the `dominant mode cluster'. The initial binary orbits are consitent with pre-main sequence data. Stellar masses are paired at random…
Galactic center black holes appear to be nearly universally surrounded by dense stellar clusters. When these black holes go through an active accretion phase, the multiple components of the accretion disk, stellar cluster, and black hole…
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…
We study the 10 Myr evolution of parsec-scale stellar disks with initial masses of $M_{\mathrm{disk}} = 1.0$ - $7.5 \times 10^4 M_\odot$ and eccentricities $e_\mathrm{init}=0.1$-$0.9$ around supermassive black holes (SMBHs). Our disk models…
Understanding the origin of stellar masses is a key problem in astrophysics. In the solar neighborhood, the mass distribution of stars follows a seemingly universal pattern. In the centre of the Milky Way, however, there are indications for…
Star counts at high and intermediate galactic latitudes, in the visible and the near infrared, are used to determine the density law and the initial mass function of the thick disc population. The combination of shallow fields dominated by…
We propose that Kozai's phenomenon is responsible for the long-term evolution of stellar orbits near a supermassive black hole. We pursue the idea that this process may be driven by a fossil accretion disc in the centre of our Galaxy,…
We identify a new secular instability of eccentric stellar disks around supermassive black holes. We show that retrograde precession of the stellar orbits, due to the presence of a stellar cusp, induces coherent torques that amplify…
We perform high resolution direct $N$-body simulations to study the effect of an accretion disc on stellar dynamics in an active galactic nucleus (AGN). We show that the interaction of the nuclear stellar cluster (NSC) with the gaseous disc…
We study the growth of stellar discs of Milky Way-sized galaxies using a suite of cosmological simulations. We calculate the half-mass axis lengths and axis ratios of stellar populations split by age in isolated galaxies with stellar mass…