Related papers: Regular and Chaotic Motion in Globular Clusters
The recent availability of special purpose computers designed for calculating gravitational interactions of N-bodies at extremely high speed has provided the means to model globular clusters on a star-by-star basis for the first time. By…
Galactic globular clusters are ancient building blocks of our Galaxy. They represent a very interesting family of stellar systems in which some fundamental dynamical processes have been taking place for more than 10 Gyr, but on time scales…
We present a new dynamical model describing 3D motion in non axially symmetric galaxies. The model covers a wide range of galaxies from a disk system to an elliptical galaxy by suitably choosing the dynamical parameters. We study the…
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…
The most massive elliptical galaxies show a prominent multi-modality in their globular cluster system color distributions. Understanding the mechanisms which lead to multiple globular cluster sub-populations is essential for a complete…
We have undertaken a long term program to measure high precision proper motions of nearby Galactic globular cluster (GC) stars using multi-epoch observations with the WFPC2 and the ACS cameras on-board the Hubble Space Telescope. The proper…
We probe the evolution of globular clusters that could form in giant molecular clouds within high-redshift galaxies. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the large and dense enough gas clouds assemble naturally in current hierarchical…
Globular clusters are among the most congested stellar systems in the Universe. Internal dynamical evolution drives them toward states of high central density, while simultaneously concentrating the most massive stars and binary systems in…
We investigate the timescales for stochasticity and chaotic mixing in a family of triaxial potentials that mimic the distribution of light in elliptical galaxies. Some of the models include central point masses designed to represent nuclear…
We investigate the orbits of compact binary systems during the final inspiral period before coalescence by integrating numerically the second-order post-Newtonian equations of motion. We include spin-orbit and spin-spin coupling terms,…
Cosmological simulations of structure formation predict that galaxies are dramatically modified by galaxy harassment during the assembly of galaxy clusters, losing a substantial fraction of their stellar mass which today must be in the form…
In a series of two papers, we test the primordial scenario of globular cluster formation using results of high-resolutions N-body simulations. In this first paper we study the initial relaxation of a stellar core inside a live dark matter…
The rotation of asymmetric bodies in eccentric Keplerian orbits can be chaotic when there is some overlap of spin-orbit resonances. Here we show that the rotation of two coorbital bodies (two planets orbiting a star or two satellites of a…
We use a simple dynamical model in order to investigate the regular or chaotic character of orbits in a barred galaxy with a central, spherically symmetric, dense nucleus and a flat disk. In particular, we explore how the total orbital…
Extremely rich populations of globular clusters, numbering ten thousand or more, surround the central giant galaxies in rich clusters. I discuss some recent spectroscopic and photometric observations of these rich globular clusters…
One of the external fields that influences the population of globular clusters is that due to galactic bulges. In extreme situations, perigalactic distances $r_p \le 100$ pc, globular clusters could suffer total disruption in a single…
Traditionally globular clusters and dwarf spheroidal galaxies have been distinguished by using one or more of the following criteria: (1) mass, (2) luminosity, (3) size, (4) mass-to-light ratio and (5) spread in metallicity. However, a few…
We determine the character of orbits of stars moving in the meridional plane $(R,z)$ of an axially symmetric time-independent disk galaxy model with a spherical central nucleus. In particular, we try to reveal the influence of the value of…
A comparative analysis of the dynamics of the orbital motion (regular or chaotic) of 45 globular clusters in the central region of the Galaxy with a radius of 3.5 kpc is carried out. The static and evolving (based on the semi-analytical…
We investigate the internal dynamics of anisotropic, rotating globular clusters with a multimass stellar population by performing new direct N-body simulations. In addition to the well-known radial mass segregation effect, where heavy stars…