Dynamics around supermassive black holes

Understand

The dynamics of galactic nuclei reflects the presence of supermassive black holes (SBHs) in many ways.

• Single SBHs act as sinks, destroying a mass in stars equal to their own mass in roughly one relaxation time and forcing nuclei to expand.
• Formation of binary SBHs displaces a mass in stars roughly equal to the binary mass, creating low-density cores and ejecting hyper-velocity stars.
• Gravitational radiation recoil can eject coalescing binary SBHs from nuclei, resulting in offset SBHs and lopsided cores.