Related papers: A black hole in a globular cluster
Recent observations and stellar dynamics simulations suggest that thousand solar mass black holes can form in compact massive young star clusters. Any such clusters in the bulge of their host galaxy will spiral to the center within a few…
Globular cluster systems exhibit a bewildering variety of characteristics. No single scenario appears to be able to account for the wide range of specific globular cluster frequencies that are observed in galaxies of various types. The…
We apply the idea that dense stellar systems in the central region of galaxies are formed via globular cluster mergers to the formation of the nuclear star cluster of the Milky Way, where a massive black hole is present. Our high precision…
Black holes are a common feature of the Universe. They are observed as stellar mass black holes spread throughout galaxies and as supermassive objects in their centres. Observations of stars orbiting close to the centre of our Galaxy…
We present results from dynamical Monte Carlo simulations of dense star clusters near the Galactic center. These clusters sink toward the center of the Galaxy by dynamical friction. During their inspiral, they may undergo core collapse and…
Globular clusters are gravitationally bound stellar systems containing on the order of 100,000 stars. Due to the high stellar densities in the cores of these clusters, close encounters and even physical collisions between stars are…
Nuclear star clusters are among the densest stellar systems known and are common in both early- and late-type galaxies. They exhibit scaling relations with their host galaxy which may be related to those of supermassive black holes. These…
A luminous X-ray source is associated with a cluster (MGG-11) of young stars \~200pc from the center of the starburst galaxy M82. The properties of the X-ray source are best explained by a black hole with a mass of at least 350Msun, which…
Binary black holes can form efficiently in dense young stellar clusters, such as the progenitors of globular clusters, via a combination of gravitational segregation and cluster evaporation. We use simple analytic arguments supported by…
The centres of galaxies host nuclear stellar clusters, supermassive black holes, or both. The origin of this dichotomy is still a mystery. Nuclear stellar clusters are the densest stellar system in the Universe, so they are ideal places for…
This work considers the idea of massive black holes being the constituents of the Galactic dark matter halo. It constrains the maximum black hole mass to $\mbh \sil 5 \times 10^4 \msun$ by examining their influence on the population of…
There is currently much interest in the possible presence of intermediate-mass black holes in the cores of globular clusters. Based on theoretical arguments and simulation results it has previously been suggested that a large core radius --…
The origin of high velocity stars observed in the halo of our Galaxy is still unclear. In this work we test the hypothesis, raised by results of recent high precision $N$-body simulations, of strong acceleration of stars belonging to a…
The existence of supermassive black holes lurking in the centers of galaxies and of stellar binary systems containing a black hole with a few solar masses has been established beyond reasonable doubt. The idea that black holes of…
Star formation in starbursts appears to be biased toward compact clusters, with up to 20% of all stars formed in them. Observations with HST show that many of these clusters have luminosities (-9 > Mv > -16), UBVI colors, and half-light…
Globular clusters are among the oldest stellar populations in the Milky Way; consequently, they also host some of the oldest known stellar-mass black holes, providing insight into black hole formation and evolution in the early ($z\gtrsim…
The discovery of numerous non-nuclear X-ray point sources with luminosities L>10^39 erg/s in several starburst galaxies has stimulated speculation about their nature and origin. The strong variability seen in several sources points to…
Quasars are associated with and powered by the accretion of material onto massive black holes; the detection of highly luminous quasars with redshifts greater than z = 6 suggests that black holes of up to ten billion solar masses already…
A small group of X-ray binaries currently provides the best evidence for the existence of stellar-mass black holes. These objects are interacting binary systems where the X-rays arise from accretion of material onto a compact object (i.e.…
It has been firmly established that there exists a tight correlation between the central black hole mass and velocity dispersion (or luminosity) of elliptical galaxies, ``pseudobulges'' and bulges of galaxies, although the nature of this…