5 papers
On the Origin of the most massive stars around R136
B. R. Brandl, S. Portegies Zwart, A. J. F. Moffat +1
We discuss the signature of a peculiar constellation of very massive stars at a projected distance of 2-3 pc around R136a. We discuss various scenarios for its possible origin, suc…
Stellar Collisions and Black Hole Formation in Dense Star Clusters
Stephen McMillan, Simon Portegies Zwart
Close encounters and physical collisions between stars in young dense clusters may lead to the formation of very massive stars and black holes via runaway merging. We examine criti…
Simulating young star clusters with primordial binaries
Simon Portegies Zwart, Steve McMillan
We simulate a cluster of 144179 stars including 13107 primordial hard binaries (10% of the total number of single stars and binary centers of mass), using direct integration of the…
Black Holes in Massive Star Clusters
Steve McMillan, Holger Baumgardt, Simon Portegies Zwart +2
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…
The gravitational wave signature of young and dense star clusters
Simon Portegies Zwart
Young star clusters are often born with such high stellar densities that stellar collisions play an important role in their further evolution. In such environments the same star ma…