258 research outputs found
On the relation between the mass of Compact Massive Objects and their host galaxies
Supermassive black holes and/or very dense stellar clusters are found in the
central regions of galaxies. Nuclear star clusters are present mainly in faint
galaxies while upermassive black holes are common in galaxies with masses M. In the intermediate galactic mass range both types of
central massive objects (CMOs) are found. Here we present our collection of a
huge set of nuclear star cluster and massive black hole data that enlarges
significantly already existing data bases useful to investigate for
correlations of their absolute magnitudes, velocity dispersions and masses with
structural parameters of their host galaxies. In particular, we directed our
attention to some differences between the correlations of nuclear star clusters
and massive black holes as subsets of CMOs with hosting galaxies. In this
context, the mass-velocity dispersion relation plays a relevant role because it
seems the one that shows a clearer difference between the supermassive black
holes and nuclear star clusters. The has a slope of while has the much smaller slope of .
The slopes of the CMO mass- host galaxy B magnitude of the two types of CMOs
are indistinguishable within the errors while that of the NSC mass-host galaxy
mass relation is significantly smaller than for supermassive black holes.
Another important result is the clear depauperation of the NSC population in
bright galaxy hosts, which reflects also in a clear flattening of the NSC mass
vs host galaxy mass at high host masses.Comment: 12 pages, 22 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in MNRA
Evolution of globular cluster systems in three galaxies of the Fornax cluster
We studied and compared the radial profiles of globular clusters and of the
stellar bulge component in three galaxies of the Fornax cluster observed with
the WFPC2 of the HST. A careful comparative analysis of these distributions
confirms that stars are more concentrated toward the galactic centres than
globular clusters, in agreement with what was observed in many other galaxies.
If the observed difference is the result of evolution of the globular cluster
system sstarting from initial profiles similar to those of the halo--bulge
stellar components, a relevant fraction of their mass (74%, 47%, 52% for NGC
1379, NGC 1399 and NGC 1404, respectively) is disappeared in the inner regions,
likely contributing to the nuclear field population, local dynamics and high
energy phenomena in the primeval life of the galaxy. An indication in favour of
the evolutionary interpretation of the difference between the globular cluster
system and stellar bulge radial profiles is given by the positive correlation
we found between the value of the mass lost from the GCS and the central
galactic black hole mass in the set of seven galaxies for which these data are
available.Comment: paper submitted to MNRAS; 8 pages, including 4 figures and 1 tabl
Formation and evolution of clumpy tidal tails around globular clusters
We present some results of numerical simulations of a globular cluster
orbiting in the central region of a triaxial galaxy on a set of 'loop' orbits.
Tails start forming after about a quarter of the globular cluster orbital
period and develop, in most cases, along the cluster orbit, showing clumpy
substructures as observed, for example, in Palomar 5. If completely detectable,
clumps can contain about 7,000 solar masses each, i.e. about 10% of the cluster
mass at that epoch. The morphology of tails and clumps and the kinematical
properties of stars in the tails are studied and compared with available
observational data. Our finding is that the stellar velocity dispersion tends
to level off at large radii, in agreement to that found for M15 and Omega
Centauri.Comment: LaTeX 2e, uses AASTeX v5.x, 40 pages with 18 figures. Submitted to
The Astronomical Journa
ON THE MAXIMUM PRINCIPLE FOR VISCOSITY SOLUTIONS OF FULLY NONLINEAR ELLIPTIC EQUATIONS IN GENERAL DOMAINS
We analyze the validity of the Maximum Principle for viscosity solutions of fully nonlinear second order elliptic equations in general unbounded domains under suitable structure conditions on the equation allowing notably quadratic growth in the gradient terms.We analyze the validity of the Maximum Principle for viscosity solutions of fully nonlinear second order elliptic equations in general unbounded domains under suitable structure conditions on the equation allowing notably quadratic growth in the gradient terms
The max-plus finite element method for solving deterministic optimal control problems: basic properties and convergence analysis
We introduce a max-plus analogue of the Petrov-Galerkin finite element method
to solve finite horizon deterministic optimal control problems. The method
relies on a max-plus variational formulation. We show that the error in the sup
norm can be bounded from the difference between the value function and its
projections on max-plus and min-plus semimodules, when the max-plus analogue of
the stiffness matrix is exactly known. In general, the stiffness matrix must be
approximated: this requires approximating the operation of the Lax-Oleinik
semigroup on finite elements. We consider two approximations relying on the
Hamiltonian. We derive a convergence result, in arbitrary dimension, showing
that for a class of problems, the error estimate is of order or , depending on the
choice of the approximation, where and are respectively the
time and space discretization steps. We compare our method with another
max-plus based discretization method previously introduced by Fleming and
McEneaney. We give numerical examples in dimension 1 and 2.Comment: 31 pages, 11 figure
Merging of globular clusters within inner galactic regions. I. Do they survive the tidal interaction?
The main topic of this paper is the investigation of the modes of interaction
of globular clusters (GCs) moving in the inner part of a galaxy. This is
tackled by means of high-resolution N-body simulations, whose first results are
presented in this article. Our simulations dealt with primordial very massive
(order of 10^7 solar masses) GCs that were able to decay, because of dynamical
friction, into the inner regions of triaxial galaxies on a time much shorter
than their internal relaxation time. To check the disruptive role of both tidal
forces and GC-GC collisions, we maximised the tidal interaction considering GCs
on quasi-radial orbits.
The available CPU resources allowed us to follow 8 oscillations of the GCs
along their orbits and the main findings are: i) clusters with an initial high
enough King concentration parameter (c>=1.2), preserve up to 50% of their
initial mass; ii) the inner density distribution of the survived clusters keep
a King model profile; iii) GC-GC collisions have a negligible effect with
respect to that caused by the passage through the galactic center; iv) the
orbital energy dissipation due to the tidal interaction is of the same order of
that caused by dynamical friction; v) complex sub-structures like "ripples" and
"clumps" formed, as observed around real clusters.
These findings support the validity of the hypothesis of merging of GCs in
the galactic central region, with modes that deserve further careful
investigations.Comment: LaTeX 2e, AASTeX v5.x, 23 pages with 14 figures. Accepted for
publication on the Astrophysical Journal. Final version with major change
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