Dynamical evolution of black hole sub-systems in idealised star clusters

Understand

In this paper, globular star clusters which contain a sub-system of stellar-mass black holes (BH) are investigated.

• This is done by considering two-component models, as these are the simplest approximation of more realistic multi-mass systems, where one component represents the BH population and the other represents all the other stars.
• These systems are found to undergo a long phase of evolution where the centre of the system is dominated by a dense BH sub-system.
• After mass segregation has driven most of the BH into a compact sub-system, the evolution of the BH sub-system is found to be influenced by the cluster in which it is contained.