Mass inflow rate into the Central Molecular Zone: observational determination and evidence of episodic accretion

Abstract

It is well known that the Galactic bar drives a gas inflow into the Central Molecular Zone, which fuels star formation, accretion onto the central super-massive black hole, and large-scale outflows. This inflow happens mostly through two symmetrical dust-lanes, similar to those often seen in external barred galaxies. Here we use the fact that the Milky Way dust-lanes have been previously identified in ${}^{12}$CO datacubes and a simple geometrical model to derive the first observational determination of the mass inflow rate into the Central Molecular Zone. We find that the time-averaged inflow rate along the near-side dust lane is $1.2_{-0.8}^{+0.7}{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }\mathrm{y}{\mathrm{r}}^{-1}$ and along the far-side dust lane is $1.5_{-1.0}^{+0.9}{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }\mathrm{y}{\mathrm{r}}^{-1}$, which gives a total inflow of $2.7_{-1.7}^{+1.5}{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }\mathrm{y}{\mathrm{r}}^{-1}$. We also provide the time series of the inflow rate $\dot{M}$ for the future few Myr. The latter shows that the inflow rate is variable with time, supporting a scenario of episodic accretion onto the Central Molecular Zone.

Accepted for publication in MNRAS

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