The nuclei of galaxies

Authors
Dr.
Nadine Neumayer
Date and time
20 Jan 2009 - 23:00 Europe/London
Address

Aula

Talk language
English
Slides language
English
Serie number
0
Description
The centers of massive galaxies are special in many ways, not least because all of them are believed to host supermassive black holes. Since the discovery of a number of relations linking the mass of this central black hole to the large scale properties of the dynamically hot component of its host galaxy (bulge) it has become clear that the growth of the central black hole is intimately connected to the evolution of its host galaxy. However, for bulge-less galaxies, the situation is much less clear. Interestingly, these galaxy often host star clusters in their nuclei, and unlike black holes, these nuclear star clusters provide a visible record of the accretion of stars and gas into the nucleus. I will present my ongoing projects on nuclear star clusters that aim to understand their formation process and might give a hint on how black holes get to the centers of galaxies.