The origin of IRS 16: dynamically driven inspiral of a dense star cluster to the Galactic center?

We use direct N-body simulations to study the inspiral and internal evolution of dense star clusters near the Galactic center. These clusters sink toward the center due to dynamical friction with the stellar background, and may go into core collapse before being disrupted by the Galactic tidal field. If a cluster reaches core collapse before disruption, its dense core, which has become rich in massive stars, survives to reach close to the Galactic center. When it eventually dissolves, the cluster deposits a disproportionate number of massive stars in the innermost parsec of the Galactic nucleus. Comparing the spatial distribution and kinematics of the massive stars with observations of IRS 16, a group of young He I stars near the Galactic center, we argue that this association may have formed in this way.Comment: 15 pages, Accepted for publiction in Ap

Star Cluster Ecology: VII The evolution of young dense star clusters containing primordial binaries

We study the first 100Myr of the evolution of isolated star clusters initially containing 144179 stars, including 13107 (10%) primordial hard binaries. Our calculations include the effects of both stellar and binary evolution. Gravitational interactions among the stars are computed by direct N-body integration using high precision GRAPE-6 hardware. The evolution of the core radii and central concentrations of our simulated clusters are compared with the observed sample of young (about 100Myr) star clusters in the large Magellanic cloud. Even though our simulations start with a rich population of primordial binaries, core collapse during the early phase of the cluster evolution is not prevented. Throughout the simulations, the fraction of binaries remains roughly constant (about 10%). Due to the effects of mass segregation the mass function of intermediate-mass main-sequence stars becomes as flat as $\alpha=-1.8$ in the central part of the cluster (where the initial Salpeter mass function had $\alpha=-2.35$). About 6--12% of the neutron stars were retained in our simulations; the fraction of retained black holes is 40--70%. In each simulation about three neutron stars become members of close binaries with a main-sequence companion. Such a binary will eventually become an x-ray binary, when the main-sequence star starts to fill its Roche lobe. Black holes are found more frequently in binaries; in each simulated cluster we find about 11 potential x-ray binaries containing a black hole. Abstract abbreviated....Comment: MNRAS in pres

Auctions Versus Negotiations in Procurement: An Empirical Analysis

Should the buyer of a customized good use competitive bidding or negotiation to select a contractor? To shed light on this question, we offer a framework that compares auctions with negotiations. We then examine a comprehensive data set of private sector building contracts awarded in Northern California during the years 1995-2000. The analysis suggests a number of potential limitations to the use of auctions. Auctions perform poorly when projects are complex, contractual design is incomplete and there are few available bidders. Furthermore, auctions stifle communication between buyers and the sellers, preventing the buyer from utilizing the contractor's expertise when designing the project. Some implications of these results for procurement in the public sector are discussed.

Black Holes in Massive Star Clusters

Close encounters and physical collisions between stars in young dense clusters can result in new channels for stellar evolution, and may lead to the formation of very massive stars and black holes via runaway merging. We present some details of this process, using the results of N-body simulations and simple analytical estimates to place limits on the cluster parameters for which it expected to occur. For small clusters, the mass of the runaway is effectively limited by the total number of high-mass stars in the system. For larger clusters, the runaway mass is determined by the fraction of stars that can mass-segregate to the cluster core while still on the main sequence. In typical cases, the result is in the range commonly cited for intermediate-mass black holes. This mechanism may therefore have important implications for the formation of massive black holes and black-hole binaries in dense cluster cores.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures; to appear in "Formation and Evolution of Massive Young Star Clusters," eds. H.J.G.L.M. Lamers, A. Nota & L.J. Smit

The runaway growth of intermediate-mass black holes in dense star clusters

We study the growth rate of stars via stellar collisions in dense star clusters, calibrating our analytic calculations with direct N-body simulations of up to 65536 stars, performed on the GRAPE family of special-purpose computers. We find that star clusters with initial half-mass relaxation times of about 25 Myr are dominated by stellar collisions, the first collisions occurring at or near the point of core collapse, which is driven by the segregation of the most massive stars to the cluster center, where they end up in hard binaries. The majority of collisions occur with the same star, resulting in the runaway growth of a supermassive object. This object can grow up to about 0.1% of the mass of the entire star cluster and could manifest itself as an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH). The phase of runaway growth lasts until mass loss by stellar evolution arrests core collapse. Star clusters older than about 5 Myr and with present-day half-mass relaxation times less than 100 Myr are expected to contain an IMBH.Comment: 19 pages, ApJ in pres

Immersive 4D Interactive Visualization of Large-Scale Simulations

In dense clusters a bewildering variety of interactions between stars can be observed, ranging from simple encounters to collisions and other mass-transfer encounters. With faster and special-purpose computers like GRAPE, the amount of data per simulation is now exceeding 1TB. Visualization of such data has now become a complex 4D data-mining problem, combining space and time, and finding interesting events in these large datasets. We have recently starting using the virtual reality simulator, installed in the Hayden Planetarium in the American Museum for Natural History, to tackle some of these problem. This work (http://www.astro.umd.edu/nemo/amnh/) reports on our first ``observations'', modifications needed for our specific experiments, and perhaps field ideas for other fields in science which can benefit from such immersion. We also discuss how our normal analysis programs can be interfaced with this kind of visualization.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, ADASS-X conference proceeding