Speaker: Re’em Sari (HUJ)
Title: Dynamical processes at our galactic center

Abstract:
The center of our galaxy is a fertile ground to many dynamical processes, due to the extreme density of stars, over a million times larger than in our neighborhood, and due to the presence of a black hole 4 million times the mass of our sun. Stellar binaries which arrive close to the black hole, are destroyed, ejecting some stars at velocities of 1000km/s away from our galaxy. Single stars which arrive even closer to the black hole are destroyed in a spectacular event that could be seen in distant galaxies. Gravitational interactions between stars deflect new stars into these deadly orbits. We review these processes, estimate their rates, and derive the expected stellar density profile around the supermassive black hole. We compare these rates to that of stars which slowly arrive at the supermassive black hole on almost circular orbits by emission of gravitational waves.