<i>N</i>-Body Growth of a Bahcall-Wolf Cusp around a Black Hole

Preto, Miguel Torres; Merritt, David; Spurzem, Rainer

doi:10.1086/425139

Cited by 90 publications

(123 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…This model is an extension of King-Michie models (Michie 1963;Michie & Bodenheimer 1963;King 1966) that is obtained by including the Bahcall-Wolf stellar distribution function within the IMBH gravitational influence region. The latter was shown to solve the Fokker-Planck equation in the vicinity of a central IMBH that formed long before a cluster relaxation time (Bahcall & Wolf 1976;Binney & Tremaine 1987), and its validity was subsequently confirmed by accurate numerical simulations (Freitag & Benz 2002;Baumgardt et al 2004;Preto et al 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

A mass estimate of an intermediate-mass black hole inωCentauri

Miocchi¹

2010

A&A

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Context. The problem of the existence of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) at the centre of globular clusters is a hot and controversial topic in current astrophysical research with important implications in stellar and galaxy formation. Aims. The purpose of this paper is to provide further evidence on the presence of an IMBH in ω Centauri and to give an independent estimate of its mass. Methods. We employed a self-consistent spherical model with anisotropic velocity distribution. It consists in a generalisation of the King model by including the Bahcall-Wolf distribution function in the IMBH vicinity. Results. By the parametric fitting of the model to recent HST/ACS data for the surface brightness profile, we found an IMBH to cluster total mass ratio of M • /M = 5.8 +0.9 −1.2 × 10 −3 . It is also found that the model yields a fit of the line-of-sight velocity dispersion profile that is better without mass segregation than in the segregated case. This confirms the current thought of a non-relaxed status for this peculiar cluster. The best fit model to the kinematic data leads, moreover, to a cluster total mass estimate of M = (3.1 ± 0.3) × 10 6 M , thus giving an IMBH mass in the range 1.3 × 10 4 < M • < 2.3 × 10 4 M (at 1σ confidence level). A slight degree of radial velocity anisotropy in the outer region (r > ∼ 12 ) is required to match the outer surface brightness profile.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

A mass estimate of an intermediate-mass black hole inωCentauri

Miocchi¹

2010

A&A

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“…The Coulomb logarithm, ln Λ, is a "fudge factor" that accounts approximately for the divergent total perturbing force in an infinite homogeneous medium. Within the SBH's sphere of influence, N-body experiments (Preto et al 2004) suggest that…”

Section: Characteristic Length and Time Scalesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamics of galaxy cores and supermassive black holes

2006

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“…Recently Aarseth [13] described an application of a time transformed leapfrog scheme [14] to this problem. We prefer the chain algorithm since it has proved itself in numerous applications, including one very similar to the current problem [15]. We incorporate the chain algorithm into a general-purpose N -body code by including the effects of nearby stars as perturbers to the chain.…”

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confidence: 99%

Evolution of Binary Supermassive Black Holes via Chain Regularization

Szell

Merritt

Mikkola³

2005

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

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A chain regularization method is combined with special purpose computer hardware to study the evolution of massive black hole binaries at the centers of galaxies. Preliminary results with up to N = 0.26 × 10 6 particles are presented. The decay rate of the binary is shown to decrease with increasing N , as expected on the basis of theoretical arguments. The eccentricity of the binary remains small.Coalescence of binary supermassive black holes is potentially the strongest source of gravitational waves in the universe [1]. The coalescence rate is limited by the efficiency with which massive binaries can interact with stars and gas in a galaxy and reach the relativistic regime at separations of ∼ 10 −3 pc. Exchange of energy between a binary black hole and stars should also leave observable traces in the stellar distribution, perhaps allowing us to infer something about the merger history of galaxies from their nuclear structure [2]. Henry Kandrup worked on this problem shortly before his death. In "Supermassive Black Hole Binaries as Galactic Blenders" [3], Kandrup et al. investigated the effects of a massive binary on the stellar orbits near the center of spherical and nearly spherical galaxies. They showed that the periodically-varying potential due to the binary, coupled with the fixed potential from the galaxy, was effective at inducing chaos in the stellar orbits, leading to diffusion in both energy and configuration space and to ejection of stars from the nucleus. This study was a complement to earlier studies based on scattering experiments [4,5] in which the potential of the galaxy was ignored.Another approach to the binary black hole problem is via direct N -body techniques [6][7][8]. This approach is computationally challenging because of the need to handle close interactions between the star-and black hole particles with high precision. In addition, large particle numbers are required to avoid the effects of spurious relaxation [9,10]. Here, we present preliminary results of Nbody integrations of the binary black hole problem, in which close interactions between the black holes and stars are handled via the Mikkola-Aarseth chainregularization algorithm [11,12]. Recently Aarseth [13] described an application 1

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N-Body Growth of a Bahcall-Wolf Cusp around a Black Hole

Cited by 90 publications

References 27 publications

A mass estimate of an intermediate-mass black hole inωCentauri

A mass estimate of an intermediate-mass black hole inωCentauri

Dynamics of galaxy cores and supermassive black holes

Evolution of Binary Supermassive Black Holes via Chain Regularization

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