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On the merger origin of nuclear star clusters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2017

Athanasia Tsatsi  and
Alessandra Mastrobuono-Battisti
Athanasia Tsatsi
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany email: [email protected]
Alessandra Mastrobuono-Battisti
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany email: [email protected]
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Abstract

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Nuclear Star Clusters (NSCs) are commonly observed in the centers of most galaxies, including our Milky Way (MW). While their study can reveal important information about the innermost regions of galaxies, the physical processes regulating their formation are still poorly understood. We explore a possible merger origin of NSCs by studying direct N-body simulations of globular clusters (GCs) that are initially randomly distributed in the outskirts and consecutively infall to the center of a MW-like nuclear bulge. We find that the NSC that forms through this process shows a significant amount of rotation, and both morphological and kinematic properties are comparable with observations of the MW NSC. We show that no fine-tuning of the orientation of the infalling GCs is necessary to result in a rotating NSC. This study shows the plausibility of the cluster infall scenario and can help towards setting better constraints to the formation history of NSCs.

Keywords

galaxies: nucleiGalaxy: centerGalaxy: formationglobular clusters: general
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 11 , Symposium S321: Formation and Evolution of Galaxy Outskirts , March 2016 , pp. 117 - 119
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2017 

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