Program: GN-2007A-Q-61

Nuclear star clusters, commonly found in lower mass galaxies, have recently been shown to follow the same relation between their mass and their host galaxies' velocity dispersion as supermassive black holes (the $M$-$\sigma$ relation). However, unlike supermassive black holes, nuclear star clusters provide a visible record of the accretion of stars and gas into the nucleus. We propose to study the formation of nuclear star clusters by obtaining IFU observations of the dynamics and stellar populations of the bright nuclear cluster in the nearby, edge-on galaxy NGC~4244. This and other nuclear clusters have been shown to have multiple structural and stellar population components. The proposed Gemini NIFS observations using the Altair/LGS will yield a spatially resolved spectrum of this cluster from which we will determine the stellar populations and measure kinematics. Modeling of these data will (1) strongly constrain the formation model for nuclear star clusters, and (2) test for the coincidence of a black hole or AGN with the nuclear cluster.