Stellar Remnants in Galactic Nuclei: Mass Segregation

Content Provider	Semantic Scholar
Author	Kalogera, Vassiliki
Copyright Year	2008
Abstract	The study of how stars distribute themselves around a massiv e black hole (MBH) in the center of a galaxy is an important prerequisite for the understanding of many gal actic-center processes. These include the observed overabundance of point X-ray sources at the Galactic center , th prediction of rates and characteristics of tidal disruptions of extended stars by the MBH and of inspira ls of compact stars into the MBH, the latter being events of high importance for the future space borne gravita tion l wave interferometer LISA. In relatively small galactic nuclei, hosting MBHs with masses in the range 10 5 − 10M⊙, the single most important dynamical process is 2-body relaxation. It induces the formation of a s teep density cusp around the MBH and strong mass segregation, as more massive stars lose energy to light er ones and drift to the central regions. Using a spherical stellar dynamical Monte-Carlo code, we simulat e the long-term relaxational evolution of galactic nucleus models with a spectrum of stellar masses. Our focus i s the concentration of stellar black holes to the immediate vicinity of the MBH. We quantify this mass segrega tion for a variety of galactic nucleus models and discuss its astrophysical implications. Special attentio n is given to models developed to match the conditions in the Milky Way nucleus; we examine the presence of compact o bjects in connection to recent high-resolution X-ray observations. Subject headings: Galaxies: Nuclei, Black Holes, Star Clusters — Methods: N−Body Simulations, Stellar Dynamics — Gravitational Waves
File Format	PDF HTM / HTML
Alternate Webpage(s)	http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0603280v1.pdf
Alternate Webpage(s)	http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0603280v2.pdf
Language	English
Access Restriction	Open
Subject Keyword	Active galactic nucleus Black Hole Cell Nucleus Computer simulation GUCY2C protein, human Galaxy Galileo (measurement) Image resolution Linear programming relaxation Medical Subject Headings Monte Carlo method Stars, Celestial Stellar (payment network) Successive over-relaxation
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article