Collisions between stars in dense stellar systems are thought to
produce tell-tale `stellar exotica,' i.e. stars with a peculiar
structure and evolution, like blue stragglers or very massive
stars. They also influence the overall dynamics by changing the
number, masses and orbits of stars. In galactic nuclei, collisional
mass loss contributes to the feeding of massive black holes. Our goals
are to understand and describe stellar collisions through
hydrodynamical simulations and (semi)analytical calculations and to
develop numerical methods to incorporate that knowledge into stellar
dynamical models.
Page last modified:
.
Please direct comments, criticisms, corrections
and contributions to Steve McMillan:
steve (at) physics.drexel.edu.