Stars near massive black holes move on elliptical orbits which precess slowly, exerting persistent gravitational torques on each other. In this the- sis we present four important consequences of... Show moreStars near massive black holes move on elliptical orbits which precess slowly, exerting persistent gravitational torques on each other. In this the- sis we present four important consequences of these gravitational torques: 1) A new instability which exposes the inherently unstable nature of ec- centric stellar disks in galactic nuclei, 2) A density depression of stars near massive black holes due to enhanced angular momentum relaxation and tidal disruptions, 3) A signature of high-eccentricity orbits for stars formed by Hills__ mechanism at large radii from the massive black hole, and a directly-observable statistic that can highlight these populations, and 4) A new dynamical process which we call "secular dynamical anti-friction" which boosts the orbital eccentricity of hypothesized intermediate-mass black holes as they spiral into massive black holes Show less
