Stellar Disk in the Galactic Center: A Remnant of a Dense Accretion Disk?

By Y. Levin, A. Beloborodov. 2003

344 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Observations of the Galactic center revealed a population of young massive stars within 0.4 pc from Sgr A*—the presumed location of a supermassive black hole. The origin of these stars is a puzzle as their formation in situ should be suppressed by the black hole's tidal field. We find that out of 13 stars whose three-dimensional velocities have been measured by Genzel et al., 10 lie in a thin disk. The half-opening angle of the disk is consistent with zero within the measurement errors and does not exceed 10°. We propose that a recent burst of star formation has occurred in a dense gaseous disk around Sgr A*. Such a disk is no longer present because, most likely, it has been accreted by the central black hole. The three-dimensional orbit of S2, the young star closest to Sgr A*, has been recently mapped out with high precision. It is inclined to the stellar disk by 75°. We find that the orbit should undergo Lense-Thirring precession with the period of ~(6/a) × 106 yr, where a < 1 is the dimensionless spin of the black hole. Therefore, it is possible that originally the S2 orbit lay in the disk plane. The Lense-Thirring precession can turn the S2 orbit by 75° if a > 0.2(tS2/6 × 106 yr)-1, where tS2 is the age of S2.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/60d0b201ef6783d6b5336eb17b064e0fb89f0177

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. T. Alexander
2. P. Hopkins
3. R. Genzel
4. E. Quataert
5. L. Hernquist
6. F. Antonini
7. B. Metzger
8. Zoltán Haiman

In Instrumentation

1. T. Alexander
2. P. Hopkins
3. R. Genzel
4. E. Quataert
5. N. Murray
6. B. Kocsis
7. N. Neumayer
8. S. Naoz

Citations in the corpus

• IMPROVING GALACTIC CENTER ASTROMETRY BY REDUCING THE EFFECTS OF GEOMETRIC DISTORTION (2010, background): “…revealed a supermassive black hole (Eckart & Genzel 1997; Ghez et al. 1998), a disk of young stars surrounding the central supermassive black hole (Levin & Beloborodov 2003; Genzel et al. 2003; Paumard et al. 2006; Lu et al. 2009), and allowed for measurements of the orbit about the GC of the…”
• The most massive stars in the Arches cluster (2007, background): “Studying the dynamics of these young stars, Paumard et al. (2006) (see also Levin & Beloborodov 2003; Genzel et al. 2003) have shown that they orbit SgrA* in two counter-rotating disks.”
• Measuring Distance and Properties of the Milky Way’s Central Supermassive Black Hole with Stellar Orbits (2008, methodology): “With these measurements, in Lu et al. (2006, 2008), we test for the existence and properties of the young stellar disk(s), proposed by Levin & Beloborodov (2003) and Genzel et al. (2003b) from a statistical analysis of velocities alone.”
• STRONG MASS SEGREGATION AROUND A MASSIVE BLACK HOLE (2008, background): “There are indications that star formation deep in the potential well of a MBH can be very different from that in the field (Levin & Beloborodov 2003; Milosavljević & Loeb 2004; Paumard et al. 2006; Levin 2007).”
• The physics of galactic winds driven by active galactic nuclei (2012, unknown): “(Levin & Beloborodov 2003).”
• A DISK OF YOUNG STARS AT THE GALACTIC CENTER AS DETERMINED BY INDIVIDUAL STELLAR ORBITS (2008, methodology): “In situ star formation scenarios can resolve the paradox of youth if a massive, self-gravitating gas disk was once present around the black hole (Levin & Beloborodov 2003).”
• The structure of the nuclear stellar cluster of the Milky Way (2006, background): “Considering the one/two discs of young stars discovered and described by Levin & Beloborodov (2003) and Genzel et al. (2003b) and described in detail by Paumard et al. (2006), the question arises about the extent by which the stellar surface density derived in this work is contaminated by stars in…”
• Massive Perturber-driven Interactions between Stars and a Massive Black Hole (2006, background): “…distinct from the young, more massive stars observed farther out, on the∼ 0.05–0.5 pc scale, which are thought to have formed from the gravitational fragmentation of one or two gas disks (Levin & Beloborodov 2003; Genzel et al. 2003; Milosavljević & Loeb 2004; Paumard et al. 2006).”
• The Stellar Cusp around the Supermassive Black Hole in the Galactic Center (2003, background): “Levin & Beloborodov (2003) have commented that such large offsets may be explained by relativistic Lense-Thirring precession of a star originally in the same plane as the stars farther out.”
• Stellar and wind properties of massive stars in the central parsec of the Galaxy (2006, background): “In the “in-situ formation” scenario, a disk forms around the supermassive black hole with a density large enough to be self-gravitating so that tidal forces do not perturb the collapse of molecular material (e.g. Levin & Beloborodov 2003; Nayakshin & Cuadra 2005).”
• Nuclear star clusters (2009, background): “This suggests that in situ star formation is taking place, despite the disruptive tidal shear forces present at these small radii (e.g., Levin and Beloborodov 2003; Mapelli et al. 2012).”
• Polarimetry of near-infrared flares from Sagittarius A* (2006, background): “These planar structures may be related to a preferred plane over which the SgrA* MBH accretes matter (Broderick & Loeb 2006; Melia & Falcke 2001; Genzel et al. 2003b; Levin & Beloborodov 2003).”
• Merging Binaries in the Galactic Center: The eccentric Kozai-Lidov mechanism with stellar evolution (2016, background): “However Levin & Beloborodov (2003) have claimed that in situ star formation close to the MBH would be possible in a dense gaseous disk (see Amaro-Seoane & Chen 2014; Chen & Amaro-Seoane 2014, for similar ideas).”
• Stellar Orbits around the Galactic Center Black Hole (2003, background): “…much higher local gas densities in the recent past in order to enable star formation to proceed in the black hole’s strong tidal field (e.g., Levin & Beloborodov 2003), (2) the stars are young and formed at larger radii, where the black hole’s tidal effects are small, and underwent rapid…”
• Stellar Processes Near the Massive Black Hole in the Galactic Center (2005, background): “The emission line stars co-rotate tangentially in an opposite direction to the Galactic rotation, in two partially overlapping disk-like structures (Levin & Beloborodov2003; Genzel et al.2003b; Fig.”