335 citations · 8.3k across the 147 of their papers we have counts for
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Formation of supermassive black holes in galactic nuclei II: retention and growth of seed intermediate-mass black holes
Abbas Askar, Melvyn B. Davies, Ross P. Church
In many galactic nuclei, a nuclear stellar cluster (NSC) co-exists with a supermassive black hole (SMBH). In this work, we explore the idea that the NSC forms before the SMBH throu…
Close stellar encounters at the Galactic Centre I: The effect on the observed stellar populations
Alessandra Mastrobuono-Battisti, Ross P. Church, Melvyn B. Davies
We model the effects of collisions and close encounters on the stellar populations observed in the Milky Way nuclear stellar cluster (NSC). Our analysis is based on -body simula…
Oumuamuas passing through molecular clouds
Susanne Pfalzner, Melvyn B. Davies, Giorgi Kokaia +1
The detections of 1I/Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov within just two years demonstrate impressively that interstellar objects (ISOs) must be common in the Milky Way. Once released from the…
Making massive stars in the Galactic Centre via accretion onto low-mass stars within an accretion disc
Melvyn B. Davies, Doug N. C. Lin
The origin of the population of very massive stars observed within pc of the supermassive black hole in the Galactic Centre is a mystery. Tidal forces from the black hol…
Formation of super-massive black holes in galactic nuclei I: delivering seed intermediate-mass black holes in massive stellar clusters
Abbas Askar, Melvyn B. Davies, Ross P. Church
Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are found in most galactic nuclei. A significant fraction of these nuclei also contain a nuclear stellar cluster (NSC) surrounding the SMBH. In thi…
Global torques and stochasticity as the drivers of massive black hole pairing in the young Universe
Elisa Bortolas, Pedro R. Capelo, Tommaso Zana +5
The forthcoming Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) will probe the population of coalescing massive black hole (MBH) binaries up to the onset of structure formation. Here we…
The Ecology of the Galactic Centre: Nuclear Stellar Clusters and Supermassive Black Holes
Melvyn B. Davies, Abbas Askar, Ross P. Church
Supermassive black holes are found in most galactic nuclei. A large fraction of these nuclei also contain a nuclear stellar cluster surrounding the black hole. Here we consider the…
Stellar encounters with giant molecular clouds
Giorgi Kokaia, Melvyn B. Davies
Giant molecular clouds (GMCs) are believed to affect the biospheres of planets as their host star passes through them. We simulate the trajectories of stars and GMCs in the Galaxy…
Rapid destruction of protoplanetary discs due to externalphotoevaporation in star-forming regions
Rhana B. Nicholson, Richard J. Parker, Ross P. Church +3
We analyse N-body simulations of star-forming regions to investigate the effects of external far and extreme ultra-violet photoevaporation from massive stars on protoplanetary disc…
Tidal stripping as a mechanism for placing globular clusters on wide orbits: the case of MGC1 in M31
Eric P. Andersson, Melvyn B. Davies
The globular clusters of large spiral galaxies can be divided into two populations: one which formed in-situ and one which comprises clusters tidally stripped away from other galax…
Gravitational scattering of stars and clusters and the heating of the Galactic disk
Bengt Gustafsson, Ross Church, Melvyn B. Davies +1
Could the velocity spread, increasing with time, in the Galactic disk be explained as a result of gravitational interactions of stars with giant molecular clouds (GMCs) and spiral…
Forming misaligned stellar discs around a massive black hole: Cloud infall in the Galactic Centre
William Lucas, Ian Bonnell, Melvyn Davies +1
The innermost parsec around Sgr A* has been found to play host to two discs or streamers of O and W-R stars. They are misaligned by an angle approaching 90 degrees. That the stars…
Misaligned streamers around a galactic centre black hole from a single cloud's infall
William E. Lucas, Ian A. Bonnell, Melvyn B. Davies +1
We follow the near radial infall of a prolate cloud onto a 4 x 10^6 Msun supermassive black hole in the Galactic Centre using smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH). We show that a…
An upper limit to the velocity dispersion of relaxed stellar systems without massive black holes
M. Coleman Miller, Melvyn B. Davies
Massive black holes have been discovered in all closely examined galaxies with high velocity dispersion. The case is not as clear for lower-dispersion systems such as low-mass gala…
Investigating stellar-mass black hole kicks
Serena Repetto, Melvyn B. Davies, Steinn Sigurdsson
We investigate whether stellar-mass black holes have to receive natal kicks in order to explain the observed distribution of low-mass X-ray binaries containing black holes within o…
A Deep Multiwavelength View of Binaries in Omega Centauri
Daryl Haggard, Adrienne M. Cool, Tersi Arias +3
We summarize results of a search for X-ray-emitting binary stars in the massive globular cluster Omega Centauri (NGC 5139) using Chandra and HST. ACIS-I imaging reveals 180 X-ray s…
The formation of very wide binaries during the star cluster dissolution phase
M. B. N. Kouwenhoven, S. P. Goodwin, Richard J. Parker +3
Over the past few decades, numerous wide (>1000 au) binaries in the Galactic field and halo have been discovered. Their existence cannot be explained by the process of star formati…
The origin of very wide binary systems
M. B. N. Kouwenhoven, S. P. Goodwin, Richard J. Parker +3
The majority of stars in the Galactic field and halo are part of binary or multiple systems. A significant fraction of these systems have orbital separations in excess of thousands…
The formation of very wide binaries
M. B. N. Kouwenhoven, S. P. Goodwin, Richard J. Parker +3
Over the last decades, numerous wide (>1000 AU) binaries have been discovered in the Galactic field and halo. The origin of these wide binaries cannot be explained by star formatio…