David Merritt

A VLA radio-survey of early-type galaxies in the Virgo cluster (2009)

Capetti, Alessandro, Kharb, Preeti, Axon, David J., Merritt, David, Baldi, Ranieri D.

We present the results of a 8.4 GHz Very Large Array radio survey of early-type galaxies extracted from the ACS Virgo Cluster Survey. The aim of this survey is to investigate the origin of radio...

Tidal break-up of binary stars at the Galactic center and its consequences (2009)

Antonini, Fabio, Faber, Joshua, Gualandris, Alessia, Merritt, David

The tidal breakup of binary star systems by the supermassive black hole (SMBH) in the center of the galaxy has been suggested as the source of both the observed sample of hypervelocity stars (HVSs)...

The Distribution of Stars and Stellar Remnants at the Galactic Center (2009)

Merritt, David

Motivated by recent observations that suggest a low density of old stars around the Milky Way supermassive black hole, evolutionary models for the nuclear star cluster are considered that postulate a...

Perturbations of Intermediate-mass Black Holes on Stellar Orbits in the Galactic Center (2009)

Gualandris, Alessia, Merritt, David

We study the short- and long-term effects of an intermediate mass black hole (IMBH) on the orbits of stars bound to the supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the center of the Milky Way. A regularized...

Probing Quiescent Massive Black Holes: Insights from Tidal Disruption Events (2009)

Gezari, Suvi, Strubbe, Linda, Bloom, Joshua S., Grindlay, J. E., Soderberg, Alicia, Elvis, Martin, ...

Tidal disruption events provide a unique probe of quiescent black holes in the nuclei of distant galaxies. The next generation of synoptic surveys will yield a large sample of flares from the tidal...

Probing Stellar Dynamics in Galactic Nuclei (2009)

Miller, M. Coleman, Alexander, Tal, Amaro-Seoane, Pau, Barth, Aaron J., Cutler, Curt, Gair, Jonathan R., ...

Electromagnetic observations over the last 15 years have yielded a growing appreciation for the importance of supermassive black holes (SMBH) to the evolution of galaxies, and for the intricacies of...

Intrinsic Shapes of Elliptical Galaxies (2009)

Merritt, David

Tests for the intrinsic shape of the luminosity distribution in elliptical galaxies are discussed, with an emphasis on the uncertainties. Recent determinations of the ellipticity frequency function...

A Counterpart to the Radial Orbit Instability in Triaxial Stellar Systems (2009)

Antonini, Fabio, Capuzzo-Dolcetta, Roberto, Merritt, David

Self-consistent solutions for triaxial mass models are highly non-unique. In general, some of these solutions might be dynamically unstable, making them inappropriate as descriptions of steady-state...

Evolution of nuclear star clusters (2009)

Merritt, David

Archived in arXiv:0802.3186 v2 Jan 5, 2009.

Explaining the Orbits of the Galactic Center S-Stars (2008)

Merritt, David, Gualandris, Alessia, Mikkola, Seppo

The young stars near the supermassive black hole at the galactic center follow orbits that are nearly random in orientation and that have an approximately thermal distribution of eccentricities, N(e)...

Binary Black Hole Merger in Galactic Nuclei: Post-Newtonian Simulations (2008)

Berentzen, Ingo, Preto, Miguel, Berczik, Peter, Merritt, David, Spurzem, Rainer

This paper studies the formation and evolution of binary supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in rotating galactic nuclei, focusing on the role of stellar dynamics. We present the first N-body...

Post-Newtonian simulations of super-massive black hole binaries in galactic nuclei (2008)

Berentzen, Ingo, Preto, Miguel, Merritt, David, Spurzem, Rainer

Also archived in arXiv:0810.5253 v1 Oct 29 2008. Publisher version can be found here: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121536915/issue

An Instability in triaxial stellar systems (2008)

Antonini, Fabio, Capuzzo-Dolcetta, Roberto, Merritt, David

Also archived in arXiv:0809.0161 v1 Sep 1, 2008. Publishers version can be found here: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121536915/issue

Merger of Massive Black Holes using N-Body Simulations with Post-Newtonian Corrections (2008)

Preto, Miguel, Berentzen, Ingo, Berczik, Peter, Merritt, David, Spurzem, Rainer

We present preliminary results from self-consistent, high resolution direct {\it N}-body simulations of massive black hole binaries in mergers of galactic nuclei. The dynamics of the black hole...

Gravitational Wave Recoil Oscillations of Black Holes: Implications for Unified Models of Active Galactic Nuclei (2008)

Komossa, S., Merritt, David

We consider the consequences of gravitational wave recoil for unified models of active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Spatial oscillations of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) around the cores of galaxies...

The Nuclear star cluster of the Milky Way (2008)

Schodel, Rainer, Merritt, David, Eckart, Andreas

Also archived in arXiv:0810.0204 v1 Oct 1, 2008. Proceedings from The Universe Under the Microscope - Astrophysics at High Angular Resolution", held 21-25 April 2008, in Bad Honnef, Germany

Hypercompact Stellar Systems Around Recoiling Supermassive Black Holes (2008)

Merritt, David, Schnittman, Jeremy D., Komossa, Stefanie

A supermassive black hole ejected from the center of a galaxy by gravitational wave recoil carries a retinue of bound stars - a "hypercompact stellar system" (HCSS). The numbers and properties of...

An Instability in Triaxial Stellar Systems (2008)

Antonini, Fabio, Capuzzo-Dolcetta, Roberto, Merritt, David

The radial-orbit instability is a collective phenomenon that has heretofore only been observed in spherical systems. We find that this instability occurs also in triaxial systems, as we checked by...

A Hybrid N-Body Code incorporating algorithmic regularization and Post-Newtonian forces (2008)

Harfst, Stefan, Gualandris, Alessia, Merritt, David, Seppo, Mikkola

Also archived in arXiv:0803.2310 v2 Jun 26, 2008. Publishers version can be found here: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/120848326/abstract

Dynamical evolution of the young stars in the Galactic center (2008)

Perets, Hagai. B., Gualandris, Alessia, Merritt, David, Alexander, Tal

Recent observations of the Galactic center revealed a nuclear disk of young OB stars near the massive black hole (MBH), in addition to many similar outlying stars with higher eccentricities and/or...

Tidal Disruption Flares from Recoiling Supermassive Black Holes (2008)

Komossa, Stefanie, Merritt, David

Supermassive black holes ejected from galaxy nuclei by gravitational wave recoil will carry a retinue of bound stars, even in the absence of an accretion disk. We discuss the observable signatures...

Dynamical evolution of the young stars in the Galactic center (2008)

Perets, Hagai, Gualandris, Alessia, Merritt, David, Alexander, Tal

Also archived in arXiv:0807.2340 v1 Jul 15, 2008. Proceedings from The Central Kiloparsec: Active Nuclei And Their Hosts from Ierapetra, Crete, Greece, June 4-6, 2008

Evolution of Nuclear Star Clusters (2008)

Merritt, David

Two-body relaxation times of nuclear star clusters are short enough that gravitational encounters should substantially affect their structure in 10 Gyr or less. In nuclear star clusters without...

The HST/ACS Coma Cluster Survey: I - Survey Objectives and Design (2008)

Carter, David, Goudfrooij, Paul, Mobasher, Bahram, Ferguson, Henry C., Puzia, Thomas H., Aguerri, Alfonso L., ...

We describe the HST ACS Coma cluster Treasury survey, a deep two-passband imaging survey of one of the nearest rich clusters of galaxies, the Coma cluster (Abell 1656). The survey was designed to...

The Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys Coma Cluster survey I: survey objectives and design (2008)

Carter, David, Goudfrooij, Paul, Mobasher, Bahram, Ferguson, Henry C., Puzia, Thomas H., Aguerri, Alfonso L., ...

We describe the HST ACS Coma Cluster Treasury survey, a deep two-passband imaging survey of one of the nearest rich clusters of galaxies, the Coma Cluster (Abell 1656). The survey was designed to...

The Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys Coma Cluster survey I: survey objectives and design (2008)

Carter, David, Goudfrooij, Paul, Mobasher, Bahram, Ferguson, Henry C., Puzia, Thomas H., Aguerri, Alfonso L., ...

We describe the HST ACS Coma Cluster Treasury survey, a deep two-passband imaging survey of one of the nearest rich clusters of galaxies, the Coma Cluster (Abell 1656). The survey was designed to...

Implementing Few-Body Algorithmic Regularization with Post-Newtonian Terms (2007)

Mikkola, Seppo, Merritt, David

We discuss the implementation of a new regular algorithm for simulation of the gravitational few-body problem. The algorithm uses components from earlier methods, including the chain structure, the...

Impact of astrophysical processes on the gamma-ray background from dark matter annihilations (2007)

Ahn, Eun-Joo, Bertone, Gianfranco, Merritt, David, Zhang, Pengjie

We study the impact of astrophysical processes on the gamma-ray background produced by the annihilation of dark matter particles in cosmological halos, with particular attention to the consequences...

Maximum gravitational recoil (2007)

Campanelli, Manuela, Lousto, Carlos O., Zlochower, Yosef, Merritt, David

Recent calculations of gravitational radiation recoil generated during black-hole binary mergers have reopened the possibility that a merged binary can be ejected even from the nucleus of a massive...

Large Merger Recoils and Spin Flips From Generic Black-Hole Binaries (2007)

Campanelli, Manuela, Lousto, Carlos O., Zlochower, Yosef, Merritt, David

We report the first results from evolutions of a generic black-hole binary, i.e. a binary containing unequal mass black holes with misaligned spins. Our configuration, which has a mass ratio of 2:1,...

Spin flips and precession in black hole binary mergers (2007)

Campanelli, Manuela, Lousto, Carlos O., Zlochower, Yosef, Krishnan, Badri, Merritt, David

We use the `moving puncture' approach to perform fully non-linear evolutions of spinning quasi-circular black-hole binaries with individual spins not aligned with the orbital angular momentum. We...

Spin Flips and Precession in Black-Hole-Binary Mergers (2006)

Campanelli, Manuela, Lousto, Carlos O., Zlochower, Yosef, Krishnan, Badri, Merritt, David

We use the `moving puncture' approach to perform fully non-linear evolutions of spinning quasi-circular black-hole binaries with individual spins not aligned with the orbital angular momentum. We...

Consequences of Triaxiality for Gravitational Wave Recoil of black holes (2006)

Vicari, Alessandro, Capuzzo-Dolcetta, Roberto, Merritt, David

Coalescing binary black holes experience a ``kick'' due to anisotropic emission of gravitational waves with an amplitude as great as 200$ km/s. We examine the orbital evolution of black holes that...

The ACS Virgo Cluster Survey. XIV. Analysis of Color-Magnitude Relations in Globular Cluster Systems (2006)

Mieske, Steffen, Jordan, Andres, Cote, Patrick, Kissler-Patig, Markus, Peng, Eric W., Ferrarese, Laura, ...

We examine the correlation between globular cluster (GC) color and magnitude using HST/ACS imaging for a sample of 79 early-type galaxies (-21.7

Empirical Models for Dark Matter Halos. II. Inner profile slopes, dynamical profiles, and rho/sigma^3 (2006)

Graham, Alister W., Merritt, David, Moore, Ben, Diemand, Juerg, Terzic, Balsa

We have recently shown that both the Prugniel-Simien model and Sersic's function (hereafter referred to as the Einasto model when applied to internal density profiles) describe simulated dark matter...

Empirical Models for Dark Matter Halos. III. The Kormendy relation and the log(rho_e)-log(R_e) relation (2006)

Graham, Alister W., Merritt, David, Moore, Ben, Diemand, Juerg, Terzic, Balsa

We have recently shown that the 3-parameter density-profile model from Prugniel & Simien provides a better fit to simulated, galaxy- and cluster-sized, dark matter halos than an NFW-like model with...

Performance Analysis of Direct N-Body Algorithms on Special-Purpose Supercomputers (2006)

Harfst, Stefan, Gualandris, Alessia, Merritt, David, Spurzem, Rainer, Zwart, Simon Portegies, Berczik, Peter

Direct-summation N-body algorithms compute the gravitational interaction between stars in an exact way and have a computational complexity of O(N^2). Performance can be greatly enhanced via the use...

Algorithmic regularization with velocity-dependent forces (2006)

Mikkola, Seppo, Merritt, David

Algorithmic regularization uses a transformation of the equations of motion such that the leapfrog algorithm produces exact trajectories for two-body motion as well as regular results in numerical...

Contribution of Stellar Tidal Disruptions to the X-Ray Luminosity Function of Active Galaxies (2006)

Milosavljevic, Milos, Merritt, David, Ho, Luis C.

The luminosity function of active galactic nuclei has been measured down to luminosities ~10^{42} erg/s in the soft and hard X-rays. Some fraction of this activity is associated with the accretion of...

Empirical models for dark matter halos I: nonparametric construction of density profiles and comparison with parametric models (2006)

Merritt, David, Graham, Alister W., Moore, Ben, Diemand, Jurg, Terzic, Balsa

We use techniques from nonparametric function estimation theory to extract the density profiles, and their derivatives, from a set of N-body dark matter halos. We consider halos generated from ΛCDM...

Empirical models for dark matter halos I: nonparametric construction of density profiles and comparison with parametric models (2006)

Merritt, David, Graham, Alister W., Moore, Ben, Diemand, Jurg, Terzic, Balsa

We use techniques from nonparametric function estimation theory to extract the density profiles, and their derivatives, from a set of N-body dark matter halos. We consider halos generated from ΛCDM...

Massive Black Hole Binary Evolution (2005)

Merritt, David, Milosavljević, Miloš

Coalescence of binary supermassive black holes (SBHs) would constitute the strongest sources of gravitational waves to be observed by LISA. While the formation of binary SBHs during galaxy mergers is...

Black Holes and Nuclear Dynamics (2005)

Merritt, David

Also archived in: arXiv:astro-ph/0602353 v2 Feb 17 2006

The ACS Virgo Cluster Survey IX: The Color Distributions of Globular Cluster Systems in Early-Type Galaxies (2005)

Peng, Eric W., Jordan, Andres, Cote, Patrick, Blakeslee, John P., Ferrarese, Laura, Mei, Simona, ...

We present the color distributions of globular cluster (GC) systems for 100 Virgo cluster early-type galaxies observed in the ACS Virgo Cluster Survey. The color distributions of individual GC...

Empirical models for Dark Matter Halos. I. Nonparametric Construction of Density Profiles and Comparison with Parametric Models (2005)

Merritt, David, Graham, Alister W., Moore, Ben, Diemand, Juerg, Terzic, Balsa

We use techniques from nonparametric function estimation theory to extract the density profiles, and their derivatives, from a set of N-body dark matter halos. We consider halos generated from LCDM...

Dark Matter Dynamics and Indirect Detection (2005)

Bertone, Gianfranco, Merritt, David

Non-baryonic, or "dark," matter is believed to be a major component of the total mass budget of the universe. We review the candidates for particle dark matter and discuss the prospects for direct...

The ACS Virgo Cluster Survey. VII. Resolving the Connection Between Globular Clusters and Ultra-Compact Dwarf Galaxies (2005)

Hasegan, Monica, Jordan, Andres, Cote, Patrick, Djorgovski, S. G., McLaughlin, Dean E., Blakeslee, John P., ...

We investigate the connection between globular clusters and ultra-compact dwarf galaxies (UCDs) by examining the properties of several compact objects associated with M87, all of which were...

Time-Dependent Models for Dark Matter at the Galactic Center (2005)

Bertone, Gianfranco, Merritt, David

The prospects of indirect detection of dark matter at the galactic center depend sensitively on the mass profile within the inner parsec. We calculate the distribution of dark matter on sub-parsec...

Massive Black Hole Binary Evolution (2004)

Merritt, David, Milosavljevic, Milos

Coalescence of binary supermassive black holes (SBHs) would constitute the strongest sources of gravitational waves to be observed by LISA. While the formation of binary SBHs during galaxy mergers is...

Evolution of the Density Profiles of Dark Matter Haloes (2003)

Reed, Darren, Governato, Fabio, Verde, Licia, Gardner, Jeffrey, Quinn, Thomas, Stadel, Joachim, ...

We use numerical simulations in a Lambda CDM cosmology to model density profiles in a set of 16 dark matter haloes with resolutions of up to 7 million particles within the virial radius. These...

The Final Parsec Problem (2003)

Milosavljević, Miloš, Merritt, David

The coalescence of massive black hole binaries is one of the main sources of low-frequency gravitational radiation that can be detected by LISA. When two galaxies containing massive black holes...

Dark Matter Spikes and Annihilation Radiation from the Galactic Center (2002)

Merritt, David, Milosavljevic, Milos, Verde, Licia, Jimenez, Raul

The annihilation rate of weakly interacting cold dark matter particles at the galactic center could be greatly enhanced by the growth of a density spike around the central supermassive black hole...

Cusp Disruption in Minor Mergers (2001)

Merritt, David, Cruz, Fidel

We present 0.55 x 10^6 particle simulations of the accretion of high-density dwarf galaxies by low-density giant galaxies, using models that contain both power-law central density cusps and point...

Systolic and Hyper-Systolic Algorithms for the Gravitational N-Body Problem, with an Application to Brownian Motion (2001)

Ernst Nils Dorb, Marc Hemsendorf, David Merritt

A systolic algorithm rhythmically computes and passes data through a network of processors. We investigate the performance of systolic algorithms for implementing the gravitational N-body problem on...

The Stellar Dynamics of ω Centauri (1997)

David Merritt, Georges Meylan, Michel Mayor

The stellar dynamics of ! Centauri are inferred from the radial velocities of 469 stars measured with CORAVEL (Mayor et al. 1997). Rather than fit the data to a family of models, we generate...

The dynamical inverse problem for axisymmetric stellar systems (1996)

Merritt, David

Archived in: arXiv:astro-ph/9603160 v3 5 Jun 1996 AND Rutgers Astrophysics Preprint Series No. 190

Chaos and elliptical galaxies (1996)

Merritt, David

Proceedings of a Workshop Held at LA Plata (Argentina), July 31-August 3, 1995

The Stellar Dynamics of ω Centauri (1996)

David Merritt, Georges Meylan, Michel Mayor

The stellar dynamics of ! Centauri are inferred from the radial velocities of 469 stars measured with CORAVEL (Mayor et al. 1997). Rather than fit the data to a family of models, we generate...

The Stellar Dynamics of M87

David Merritt

We extract the shape of the stellar velocity ellipsoid as a function of radius in M87 from van der Marel's (1994) velocity dispersion data. We include the gravitational force of a central black...

Glow Worms as a Tourist Attraction in Springbrook National Park: Visitor Attitudes and Economic Issues

Wilson, Clevo, Tisdell, Clem, Merritt, David

Insect-based tourism mainly caters to a niche market, but its popularity has been growing in recent years. Despite its popularity this form of tourism has remained under-researched and in a sense its...