Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
May 2008
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008dda....39.0102c&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DDA meeting #39, #1.02
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
Observations of massive stars within the central parsec of the Galaxy show that while most stars orbit within a well-defined disk, a significant fraction have large eccentricities and / or inclinations with respect to the disk plane. Here, we investigate whether this dynamically hot component could have arisen via scattering from an initially cold disk -- the expected initial condition if the stars formed from the fragmentation of an accretion disk. Using N-body methods, we evolve a variety of flat, cold, stellar systems, and study the effects of initial disk eccentricity, primordial binaries, very massive stars and intermediate mass black holes. We find, consistent with previous results, that a circular disk does not become eccentric enough unless there is a significant population of undetected 100-1000 Msun objects. However, since fragmentation of an eccentric disk can readily yield eccentric stellar orbits, the strongest constraints come from inclinations. We show that none of our initial conditions yield the observed large inclinations, regardless of the initial disk eccentricity or the presence of massive objects. These results imply that the orbits of the young massive stars in the Galactic Center are largely primordial, and that the stars are unlikely to have formed as a dynamically cold disk.
Alexander Richard D.
Armitage Philip J.
Cuadra Jorge
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