On the merger origin of nuclear star clusters

Nuclear Star Clusters (NSCs) are commonly observed in the centers of most galaxies, including our Milky Way (MW). While their study can reveal important information about the innermost regions of galaxies, the physical processes regulating their formation are still poorly understood. We explore a possible merger origin of NSCs by studying direct N-body simulations of globular clusters (GCs) that are initially randomly distributed in the outskirts and consecutively infall to the center of a MW-like nuclear bulge. We find that the NSC that forms through this process shows a significant amount of rotation, and both morphological and kinematic properties are comparable with observations of the MW NSC. We show that no fine-tuning of the orientation of the infalling GCs is necessary to result in a rotating NSC. This study shows the plausibility of the cluster infall scenario and can help towards setting better constraints to the formation history of NSCs.