Supermassive black holes and nuclear star clusters in galaxies: constraining formation and co-evolution with SHARP and MICADO

Abstract

Nuclear star clusters and supermassive black holes are the dominant compact components in galaxy nuclei. They can coexist within the same system, and their relative prominence traces the history of gas inflow, star formation, and dynamical evolution on parsec scales. Key questions remain open concerning the physical channels that assemble nuclear star clusters, the mass regimes in which supermassive black holes become dynamically dominant, and the conditions under which compact stellar nuclei are suppressed, destroyed, or replaced by cusp-like structures. We describe how near-infrared integral-field spectroscopy with SHARP on the Extremely Large Telescope, combined with high-resolution imaging from MICADO, enables quantitative tests of nuclear formation and evolution scenarios within a unified framework. The joint analysis of stellar dynamics, stellar populations, and nuclear structure allows black-hole masses, internal kinematics of nuclear star clusters, and signatures of gas inflow to be measured consistently within the same systems, and defines the mass and distance ranges where robust constraints can be obtained. Recent discoveries of compact active nuclei at high redshift indicate that efficient black-hole growth can occur in systems with weak or compact stellar components. Although nearby galaxies are not evolutionary analogues of early systems, the diversity of nuclear configurations accessible with SHARP and MICADO provides a local laboratory for isolating the physical mechanisms that regulate the coupled evolution of central black holes and nuclear stellar structures.