Program: GN-2008B-Q-74

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 use NIFS with Altair in LGS mode to make the highest spectral and angular resolution studies to date of four nearby (D < 4~Mpc) galaxies in order to quantitatively probe their stellar populations and kinematics. These observations will provide important information on the formation mechanism of nuclear star clusters and allow us to estimate potential black hole masses. These observations form the initial sample for a larger survey of nearby (D<5~Mpc) galactic nuclei which we propose to observe in the coming semesters. The survey will be carried out in parallel with colleagues at ESO (VLT) who will execute similar observations in the southern sky.