PhD student in Astroparticle Physics
Gran Sasso Science Institute
Education: MS in Astrophysics and Cosmology at the University of Padova; BS in Physics at the University of Camerino
Research Interests: Formation and evolution of intermediate-mass black holes in massive star clusters; evolution of star clusters; impact of star cluster dynamics on binary star evolution
Publications: A list of my publications can be found here
Formation channels of intermediate-mass black holes in massive star clusters
In my master thesis I explored the main formation channels of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) in massive star clusters, i.e. runaway collisions in the
first evolutionary stages of the cluster and hierarchical black hole mergers after its relaxation, using the N-body code PETAR. A link to this work can be found here.
Efficiency of runaway collisions in young massive clusters
In this project (Mestichelli+, in prep) we have studied the efficiency of runaway collisions in star clusters in the first 20 Myr of their lives
as a function of their central density, using the N-body code PETAR. The mass distributions of both very massive stars and massive black holes in the clusters strongly depend on this efficiency.
Binary black hole mergers from Population III star clusters
In the paper Mestichelli et al. 2024, we explored the effect of dynamics on the mass distribution of Pop. III binary black hole mergers. We found that the dynamics in
the first star clusters significantly populates the region above the upper mass gap.
Outreach: I partecipated to SHARPER (European Researchers' Night) in September 2023, focusing in particular on the discussion of general relativity and gravitational waves. In April 2024, during my visiting period at the University of Heidelberg, I partecipated to the Girl's Day with my colleagues. There, we organized an hands-on session on computational astrophysics.
Email: benedetta.mestichelli@gssi.it
Address: Viale Francesco Crispi,7 - L'Aquila, Italy