A Fokker-Planck Model of Rotating Stellar Clusters

Abstract

We have developed a two-dimensional orbit averaged Fokker-Planck model of stellar clusters which expands on spherically symmetric one-dimensional models to include rotation and ellipticity. Physical effects such as collisions, finite stellar lifetimes and bar formation (i.e., a non-axisymmetric component of the potential) can also be included. The first use of the model is to study the evolution of dense clusters (rho(r=0)=~10^7 M_sun/pc^3) that may be expected to have existed at the centres of newly-forming galaxies, with the goal of verifying that angular momentum can be removed from the core of the cluster quickly enough so that rotation no longer prevents the formation of a massive (~10^2 M_sun) object. This could act as the seed black hole for the formation of an AGN.