Stellar Dynamics around a Massive Black Hole III: Resonant Relaxation of Axisymmetric Discs

Abstract

We study the Resonant Relaxation (RR) of an axisymmetric low mass (or Keplerian) stellar disc orbiting a more massive black hole (MBH). Our recent work on the general kinetic theory of RR is simplified in the standard manner by ignoring the effects of `gravitational polarization', and applied to a zero-thickness, flat, axisymmetric disc. The wake of a stellar orbit is expressed in terms of the angular momenta exchanged with other orbits, and used to derive a kinetic equation for RR under the combined actions of self-gravity, 1 PN and 1.5 PN relativistic effects of the MBH and an arbitrary external axisymmetric potential. This is a Fokker-Planck equation for the stellar distribution function (DF), wherein the diffusion coefficients are given self-consistently in terms of contributions from apsidal resonances between pairs of stellar orbits. The physical kinetics is studied for the two main cases of interest. (1) `Lossless' discs in which the MBH is not a sink of stars, and disc mass, angular momentum and energy are conserved: we prove that general H-functions can increase or decrease during RR, but the Boltzmann entropy is (essentially) unique in being a non-decreasing function of time. Therefore secular thermal equilibria are maximum entropy states, with DFs of the Boltzmann form; the two-Ring correlation function at equilibrium is computed. (2) Discs that lose stars to the MBH through an `empty loss-cone': we derive expressions for the MBH feeding rates of mass, angular momentum and energy in terms of the diffusive flux at the loss-cone boundary.

Submitted to MNRAS; 28 preprint pages, 3 figures

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