Title: Modeling Black Hole Mergers and Stellar Streams from Dense Star Clusters in a Cosmological Context
Abstract: The formation, evolution, and destruction of star clusters is a key component of both the life cycle of galaxies and their black hole populations. At birth, extremely dense clusters can produce runaway stellar mergers, the potential progenitors of massive black holes. As they evolve, these clusters dynamically produce binary black holes with unique masses, spins, and other features observable in current gravitational-wave observatories. And even after their deaths, these clusters live on as stellar streams, a potentially powerful tracer of galactic (sub)structure. In this talk, I will describe a project to self-consistently evolve star clusters in a cosmological simulation of a Milky Way-like galaxy, from their formation in collapsing gas clouds to their destruction by the galactic tidal field. I will then connect these simulated clusters to both the heavy black hole mergers discovered by LIGO and the recently-detected intermediate-mass black hole in Omega Centauri. Finally, I will describe a new project to forward model the stellar streams produced by these disrupted globular clusters, to prepare for upcoming surveys like LSST and Roman.