The influence of the secular perturbation of an intermediate-mass companion: I. Eccentricity excitation of disk stars at the Galactic center

Abstract

There is a dense group of OB and Wolf-Rayet stars within a fraction of a parsec from the super-massive black hole (SMBH) at the Galactic Center. These stars appear to be coeval and relatively massive. A subgroup of these stars orbits on the same plane. If they emerged with low to modest eccentricity orbits from a common gaseous disk around the central super-massive black hole, their inferred lifespan would not be sufficiently long to account for the excitation of their high orbital eccentricity through dynamical relaxation. Here we analyze the secular perturbation on Galactic Center stars by an intermediate-mass companion (IMC) as a potential mechanism to account for these young disk stars' high eccentricity. This IMC may be either an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) or a compact cluster such as IRS-13E. If its orbital angular momentum vector is anti-parallel to that of the disk stars, this perturbation would be effective in exciting the eccentricity of stars with orbital precession rates which resonate with IMC's precession rate. If it orbits around the SMBH in the same direction as the disk stars, the eccentricity of the young stars can still be highly excited by the IMC during the depletion of their natal disk, possible associated with the launch of the Fermi bubble. In this scenario, IMC's precession rate decreases and its secular resonance sweeps through the proximity of the young stars. We carry out numerical simulations with various inclination angles between the orbits of IMC and the disk stars and show this secular interaction is a robust mechanism to excite the eccentricity and inclination of some disk stars.

arXiv comment21 pages, 7 figures, accepted by ApJ

References in corpus (61)

• Measuring Distance and Properties of the Milky Way's Central Supermassive Black Hole with Stellar Orbits
• The Galactic Center Massive Black Hole and Nuclear Star Cluster
• REBOUND: An open-source multi-purpose N-body code for collisional dynamics
• Giant Gamma-ray Bubbles from Fermi-LAT: AGN Activity or Bipolar Galactic Wind?
• The Eccentric Kozai-Lidov Effect and Its Applications
• The Proper Motion of Sgr A*: II. The Mass of Sgr A*
• High Proper Motion Stars in the Vicinity of Sgr A*: Evidence for a Supermassive Black Hole at the Center of Our Galaxy
• Coalescing binary systems of compact objects to (post)$^{5/2}-Newtonian order. V. Spin Effects
• The First Measurement of Spectral Lines in a Short-Period Star Bound to the Galaxy's Central Black Hole: A Paradox of Youth
• The Two Young Star Disks in the Central Parsec of the Galaxy: Properties, Dynamics and Formation
• The Stellar Cusp Around the Supermassive Black Hole in the Galactic Center
• The orbit of the star S2 around SgrA* from VLT and Keck data
• Selfgravity and QSO disks
• Stellar disk in the galactic center -- a remnant of a dense accretion disk?
• Ejection of hypervelocity stars by the (binary) black hole(s) in the Galactic center
• Resonant Relaxation in Stellar Systems
• A Disk of Young Stars at the Galactic Center as Determined by Individual Stellar Orbits
• An Improved Distance and Mass Estimate for Sgr A* from a Multistar Orbit Analysis
• The nuclear star cluster of the Milky Way: proper motions and mass
• Post-Newtonian Dynamics in Dense Star Clusters: Formation, Masses, and Merger Rates of Highly-Eccentric Black Hole Binaries
• Post-Newtonian Dynamics in Dense Star Clusters: Highly-Eccentric, Highly-Spinning, and Repeated Binary Black Hole Mergers
• Equilibrium Disk-Bulge-Halo Models for the Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxies
• Stellar remnants in galactic nuclei: mass segregation
• Eccentricity growth and orbit flip in coplanar hierarchical three body systems
• The Galactic Center He I Stars: Remains of a Dissolved Young Cluster?
• Simulations of star formation in a gaseous disc around sgr A* - a failed AGN
• The need for a second black hole at the Galactic center
• Greatly enhanced merger rates of compact-object binaries in non-spherical nuclear star clusters
• High angular resolution integral-field spectroscopy of the Galaxy's nuclear cluster: a missing stellar cusp?
• Chaos in the Test Particle Eccentric Kozai-Lidov Mechanism
• The lives and deaths of star clusters near the Galactic center
• The nature of the Galactic Center source IRS 13 revealed by high spatial resolution in the infrared
• Probing the Shape of the Galactic Halo with Hyper-Velocity Stars
• Dynamical Friction on Star Clusters near the Galactic Center
• On the Migration of Jupiter and Saturn: Constraints from Linear Models of Secular Resonant Coupling with the Terrestrial Planets
• Hypervelocity Stars: From the Galactic Center to the Halo
• A New Secular Instability of Eccentric Stellar Disks Around Supermassive Black Holes, with Application to the Galactic Center
• Dynamical Friction of Galactic Center Star Clusters with an Intermediate-Mass Black Hole
• The Disruption of Stellar Clusters Containing Massive Black Holes near the Galactic Center
• Secular Stellar Dynamics near a Massive Black Hole
• 3D stellar kinematics at the Galactic center: measuring the nuclear star cluster spatial density profile, black hole mass, and distance
• Dynamical friction of massive objects in galactic centres
• A Black Hole in the Galactic Center Complex IRS 13E?
• A hidden friend for the galactic center black hole, Sgr A*
• Full Three Dimensional Orbits For Multiple Stars on Close Approaches to the Central Supermassive Black Hole
• Constraints on the Stellar Mass Function from Stellar Dynamics at the Galactic Center
• Dynamical Properties of Eccentric Nuclear Disks: Stability, Longevity, and Implications for Tidal Disruption Rates in Post-Merger Galaxies
• Eccentricity Evolution of Extrasolar Multiple Planetary Systems due to the Depletion of Nascent Protostellar Disks
• The Hills Mechanism and the Galactic Center S-stars
• High order symplectic integrators for planetary dynamics and their implementation in REBOUND
• Intermediate-mass Black Hole and stellar orbits in the Galactic Center
• Confusing binaries: the role of stellar binaries in biasing disk properties in the Galactic Center
• On the number of young stellar discs in the Galactic Centre
• The Second Galactic Center Black Hole?; A Possible Detection of Ionized Gas Orbiting around an IMBH embedded in the Galactic Center IRS13E complex
• Compact-Object Mergers in the Galactic Center: Evolution in Triaxial Clusters
• Planetesimal clearing and size-dependent asteroid retention by secular resonance sweeping during the depletion of the solar nebula
• The Stationary Points of the Hierarchical Three Body Problem
• Clearing residual planetesimals by sweeping secular resonances in transitional disks: a lone-planet scenario for the wide gaps in debris disks around Vega and Fomalhaut
• Galactic Center IRS13E: Colliding Stellar Winds or an Intermediate Mass Black Hole?
• On the origin of kinematic distribution of the sub-parsec young stars in the Galactic center
• Colliding Winds in and around the Stellar Group IRS 13E at the Galactic Center

Cited by in corpus (9)

• The Formation of Intermediate Mass Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei
• The Combined Effects of Two-Body Relaxation Processes and the Eccentric Kozai-Lidov Mechanism on the EMRI Rate
• A Stability Timescale for Non-Hierarchical Three-Body Systems
• Constraining a companion of the galactic center black hole, Sgr A*
• Eccentricity dynamics of wide binaries -- I. The effect of Galactic tides
• The evolution of circumstellar discs in the Galactic Centre: an application to the G-clouds
• Testing the Black Hole No-hair Theorem with Galactic Center Stellar Orbits
• The influence of the secular perturbation of an intermediate-mass companion: II. Ejection of hypervelocity stars from the Galactic Center
• Photometric Constraints on Intermediate-mass Black Holes in the Galactic Centre