Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Galaxy Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2010-02-01
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Galaxy Astrophysics
To appear in "The Galactic Center: A Window on the Nuclear Environment of Disk Galaxies", ed. Mark Morris, Daniel Q. Wang and
Scientific paper
We consider whether stellar collisions can explain the observed depletion of red giants in the Galactic center. We model the stellar population with two different IMFs: 1) the Miller-Scalo and 2) a much flatter IMF. In the former case, low-mass main-sequence stars dominate the population, and collisions are unable to remove red giants out to 0.4 pc although brighter red giants much closer in may be depleted via collisions with stellar-mass black holes. For a much flatter IMF, the stellar population is dominated by compact remnants (i.e. black holes, white dwarfs and neutron stars). The most common collisions are then those between main-sequence stars and compact remnants. Such encounters are likely to destroy the main-sequence stars and thus prevent their evolution into red giants. In this way, the red-giant population could be depleted out to 0.4 pc matching observations. If this is the case, it implies the Galactic center contains a much larger population of stellar-mass black holes than would be expected from a regular IMF. This may in turn have implications for the formation and growth of the central supermassive black hole.
Church Ross P.
Dale Jim
Davies Melvyn B.
Freitag Marcus
Malmberg Daniel
No associations
LandOfFree
The Impact of Stellar Collisions in the Galactic Center does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with The Impact of Stellar Collisions in the Galactic Center, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and The Impact of Stellar Collisions in the Galactic Center will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-706123