Skip to content
DraconiticResearch
Search Sources API
197,761 studies31 sourcesUpdated 15 min ago
Peer-reviewedCC BY 4.0The Astrophysical Journal

A Cosmological Framework for Stellar Collisions at High Redshift in Proto-globular Clusters, Nuclear Star Clusters, and Little Red Dots

  • Claire E. Williams1
  • Smadar Naoz1
  • Sanaea C. Rose2,3
  • Blakesley Burkhart4,5
  • Naoki Yoshida6
  • Avi Chen4
  • Kyle Kremer7
  • William Lake8
  • Federico Marinacci9,10
  • Shyam H. Menon4,5
  • Mark Vogelsberger11,12
12 affiliations
  1. 1UCLA
  2. 2Northwestern University
  3. 3NSF-Simons AI Institute for the Sky (SkAI)
  4. 4The State University of New Jersey
  5. 5Flatiron Institute
  6. 6The University of Tokyo
  7. 7University of California
  8. 8Dartmouth College
  9. 9Università di Bologna
  10. 10INAF
  11. 11Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  12. 12Philipps Universität Marburg
Open at sourcePDFDOICite

Abstract

Observations and cosmological simulations indicate that the early Universe hosted numerous compact, high-density stellar systems, where close encounters and physical collisions between stars were likely common. We develop a bottom-up framework for stellar dynamics in such environments, spanning systems with and without intermediate-mass and supermassive black holes, and covering regimes where stellar collisions may or may not dominate the evolution. This radially resolved analytic model connects dense star clusters in their cosmological context to observable outcomes mediated by stellar collisions. Initial conditions and environmental properties are drawn from high-resolution cosmological simulations, enabling exploration across a broad region of parameter space. The analytic predictions are validated against Monte Carlo simulations, demonstrating good agreement across key regimes. We find that stellar collisions are ubiquitous in many high-redshift environments, with runaway sequences naturally leading to the formation of very massive stars at early times. Finally, we show that high rates of destructive collisions can rapidly build up extremely dense gaseous environments around massive black holes, potentially providing an analog to the observed population of Little Red Dots.

Related

  1. Playing CHESS with stars. II. Homogeneous analysis of high-resolution optical spectra for a sample of 135 giants in 14 bulge globular clusters
    S. Özdemir, R. Smiljanic, J. E. Martínez Fernández +3
    Astronomy & AstrophysicsPeer-reviewedPublisher termsSolar & stellar physicsCrossref
  2. Isochrone fitting of Galactic globular clusters - IX. Tip of the red-giant branch for 27 clusters and constraints on new particle physics
    G. A. Gontcharov, A. M. Kudashov, O. S. Ryutina +1
    arXivPreprintarXiv licenceFull textGalaxiesHigh-energy & particle physicsarXiv
  3. SHARP(ening the) view of unresolved globular clusters in ultra diffuse galaxies
    Marco Mirabile, Michele Cantiello, Benedetta Di Francesco +7
    arXivPreprintCC BY 4.0Full textGalaxiesInstrumentation & methodsarXiv
  4. The Origin of Isolated Millisecond Pulsars in Non-core-collapsed Globular Clusters
    Raniere de Menezes
    The Astrophysical Journal LettersPeer-reviewedCC BY 4.0Full textHigh-energy astrophysicsIOP/AASCrossref
  5. Probing Globular Clusters using Gravitational Waves from Inspiraling Stellar-mass Binary Black Holes in Space-based Detector
    Jie Wu, Yao Xiao, Mengfei Sun +1
    Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical SocietyPeer-reviewedCC BY 4.0Full textHigh-energy astrophysicsCrossref

Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{williams2026cosmological,
  title = {{A Cosmological Framework for Stellar Collisions at High Redshift in Proto-globular Clusters, Nuclear Star Clusters, and Little Red Dots}},
  author = {Claire E. Williams and Smadar Naoz and Sanaea C. Rose and Blakesley Burkhart and Naoki Yoshida and Avi Chen and Kyle Kremer and William Lake and Federico Marinacci and Shyam H. Menon and Mark Vogelsberger},
  journal = {The Astrophysical Journal},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.3847/1538-4357/aea577},
  url = {https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/aea577},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - A Cosmological Framework for Stellar Collisions at High Redshift in Proto-globular Clusters, Nuclear Star Clusters, and Little Red Dots
AU  - Claire E. Williams
AU  - Smadar Naoz
AU  - Sanaea C. Rose
AU  - Blakesley Burkhart
AU  - Naoki Yoshida
AU  - Avi Chen
AU  - Kyle Kremer
AU  - William Lake
AU  - Federico Marinacci
AU  - Shyam H. Menon
AU  - Mark Vogelsberger
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/26
JO  - The Astrophysical Journal
DO  - 10.3847/1538-4357/aea577
UR  - https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/aea577
AB  - Observations and cosmological simulations indicate that the early Universe hosted numerous compact, high-density stellar systems, where close encounters and physical collisions between stars were likely common. We develop a bottom-up framework for stellar dynamics in such environments, spanning systems with and without intermediate-mass and supermassive black holes, and covering regimes where stellar collisions may or may not dominate the evolution. This radially resolved analytic model connects dense star clusters in their cosmological context to observable outcomes mediated by stellar collisions. Initial conditions and environmental properties are drawn from high-resolution cosmological simulations, enabling exploration across a broad region of parameter space. The analytic predictions are validated against Monte Carlo simulations, demonstrating good agreement across key regimes. We find that stellar collisions are ubiquitous in many high-redshift environments, with runaway sequences naturally leading to the formation of very massive stars at early times. Finally, we show that high rates of destructive collisions can rapidly build up extremely dense gaseous environments around massive black holes, potentially providing an analog to the observed population of Little Red Dots.
SN  - 0004-637X
SN  - 1538-4357
ER  -