The Formation of the Milky Way Nuclear Cluster

Abstract

Nuclear Star Clusters are observed at the center of many galaxies. In particular in the center of the Milky Way the Nuclear Star Cluster coexists with a cen- tral supermassive black hole. The origin of these clusters is still unknown; a possible formation mechanism is the decay of massive globular clusters driven inward to the galactic center by dynamical friction and their subsequent merging. By investigating this scenario by means of sophisticated N-body simulations we found that this process could lead to a final product which actually shows many of the observed features of the Milky Way Nuclear Star Cluster.

4 pages, 4 figures, To appear in "Advances in Computational Astrophysics: methods, tools and outcomes", ASP Conference Series, R. Capuzzo-Dolcetta, M. Limongi and A. Tornambè eds