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The remnants of clusters which have spiraled to the galactic center through dynamical friction may now be visible as a galactic nucleus. This theory was previously tested on M31. In this paper, some of the assumptions made previously are checked using data from the Galactic globular-cluster system, and the theory is applied to the Galaxy and to nearby elliptical galaxies. The results are consistent with observations, but depend strongly on the assumed initial space distribution of the clusters. The evolution of the cluster population is shown to affect the use of brightest clusters as distance indicators, and an alternative luminosity standard is suggested.
Scott Tremaine (Thu,) studied this question.