Strain-induced gradients of local electric fields in semiconductor quantum dots can couple to the quadrupole moments of nuclear spins. We develop a theory describing the influence of this quadrupolar coupling on the spin correlators of electron and hole "central" spins localized in such dots. We show that when the quadrupolar coupling strength is comparable to or larger than the hyperfine coupl...

Winds from massive stars supply ≈ 10 −3 M ⊙ yr −1 of gas to the central parsec of the Galactic Center. Spherically symmetric hydrodynamic calculations show that ≈ 1% of this gas, or ≈ 10 −5 M ⊙ yr −1 , flows in towards the central massive black hole Sgr A*; the remaining gas, ≈ 10 −3 M ⊙ yr −1 , is thermally driven out of the central star cluster in a wind. This dynamical model accounts for the...

The observed relation between central black hole mass and spheroid velocity dispersion is interpreted in terms of a self-regulation model that incorporates a viscous Keplerian accretion disk to feed the black hole, embedded in a massive, self-gravitating star forming disk that eventually populates the spheroid. The model leads to a constant ratio between black hole mass and spheroid mass which ...

We present the first study of the dynamical evolution of a star cluster that combines a significant population of primordial binaries with the presence of a central black hole. We use direct N-body simulations, with a black hole mass of about one percent of the total mass of the cluster. The evolution of the binary population is strongly influenced by the presence of the black hole, which gives...

We argue that bound states of branes have a size that is of the same order as the horizon radius of the corresponding black hole. Thus the interior of a black hole is not ‘empty space with a central singularity’, and Hawking radiation can pick up information from the degrees of freedom of the hole. Talk given at ‘Quantum Theory and Symmetries’, Cincinnati, September 2003.