Stellar Processes Near the Massive Black Hole in the Galactic Center

Abstract

A massive black hole resides in the center of most, perhaps all galaxies. The one in the center of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, provides a uniquely accessible laboratory for studying in detail the connections and interactions between a massive black hole and the stellar system in which it grows; for investigating the effects of extreme density, velocity and tidal fields on stars; and for using stars to probe the central dark mass and probe post-Newtonian gravity in the weak- and strong-field limits. Recent results, open questions and future prospects are reviewed in the wider context of the theoretical framework and physical processes that underlie them. Contents: [1] Introduction (1.1) Astrophysical context (1.2) Science questions (1.3) Scope and connections to related topics [2] Observational overview: Stars in the Galactic center (2.1) The central 100 parsecs (2.2) The central parsec [3] Stellar dynamics at extreme densities (3.1) Physical processes and scales (3.2) The stellar cusp in the Galactic center (3.3) Mass segregation (3.4) Stellar Collisions [4] Probing the dark mass with stellar dynamics (4.1) Weighing and pinpointing the dark mass (4.2) Constraints on non-BH dark mass alternatives (4.3) Limits on MBH binarity (4.4) High-velocity runaway stars [5] Probing post-Newtonian gravity near the MBH (5.1) Relativistic orbital effects (5.2) Gravitational lensing [6] Strong star-MBH interactions (6.1) Tidal disruption (6.2) Dissipative interactions with the MBH [7] The riddle of the young stars (7.1) The difficulties of forming or importing stars near a MBH (7.2) Proposed solutions (7.3) Feeding the MBH with stellar winds [8] Outlook (8.1) Progress report (8.2) Future directions

Invited review article, to appear in Physics Reports. 101 pp

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Cited by in corpus (202)

• Monitoring stellar orbits around the Massive Black Hole in the Galactic Center
• The Galactic Center Massive Black Hole and Nuclear Star Cluster
• Testing the nature of dark compact objects: a status report
• Detection of the gravitational redshift in the orbit of the star S2 near the Galactic centre massive black hole
• Science with the space-based interferometer LISA. V: Extreme mass-ratio inspirals
• The Two Young Star Disks in the Central Parsec of the Galaxy: Properties, Dynamics and Formation
• Intermediate and Extreme Mass-Ratio Inspirals -- Astrophysics, Science Applications and Detection using LISA
• Detection of the Schwarzschild precession in the orbit of the star S2 near the Galactic centre massive black hole
• Optical Flares from the Tidal Disruption of Stars by Massive Black Holes
• Relativistic redshift of the star S0-2 orbiting the Galactic center supermassive black hole
• Secular evolution of compact binaries near massive black holes: gravitational wave sources and other exotica
• A Disk of Young Stars at the Galactic Center as Determined by Individual Stellar Orbits
• Approximate Universal Relations for Neutron Stars and Quark Stars
• Testing General Relativity with stellar orbits around the supermassive black hole in our Galactic center
• Massive perturber-driven interactions of stars with a massive black hole
• Testing the general relativistic ''no-hair'' theorems using the galactic center black hole SgrA*
• The structure of the nuclear stellar cluster of the Milky Way
• Tidal disruption and ignition of white dwarfs by moderately massive black holes
• Stationary Scalar Clouds Around Rotating Black Holes
• The effect of mass-segregation on gravitational wave sources near massive black holes
• Resonant relaxation near a massive black hole: the stellar distribution and gravitational wave sources
• Stellar remnants in galactic nuclei: mass segregation
• Strong mass segregation around a massive black hole
• The old nuclear star cluster in the Milky Way: dynamics, mass, statistical parallax, and black hole mass
• Merging Binaries in the Galactic Center: The eccentric Kozai-Lidov mechanism with stellar evolution
• Stellar Dynamics and Stellar Phenomena Near A Massive Black Hole
• The star formation history of the Milky Way's Nuclear Star Cluster
• The Distribution of Stars and Stellar Remnants at the Galactic Center
• The Tidal Disruption of Giant Stars and Their Contribution to the Flaring Supermassive Black Hole Population
• Soft X-ray Temperature Tidal Disruption Events from Stars on Deep Plunging Orbits
• Eccentric Black Hole Gravitational-Wave Capture Sources in Galactic Nuclei: Distribution of Binary Parameters
• Large scale kinematics and dynamical modelling of the Milky Way nuclear star cluster
• Resonant relaxation and the warp of the stellar disc in the Galactic centre
• Stellar Evolution in AGN Disks
• Evidence for a Long-Standing Top-Heavy IMF in the Central Parsec of the Galaxy
• Probing Post-Newtonian Gravity near the Galactic Black Hole with Stellar Doppler Measurements
• On strong mass segregation around a massive black hole: Implications for lower-frequency gravitational-wave astrophysics
• Surface phase separation in nanosized charge-ordered manganites
• Dynamical Friction around Supermassive Black Holes
• Origin of the Fermi Bubble
• Black holes and fundamental fields in Numerical Relativity: initial data construction and evolution of bound states
• Dynamical friction and the evolution of Supermassive Black hole Binaries: the final hundred-parsec problem
• Modelling the Sgr A* Black Hole Immersed in a Dark Matter Spike
• Long-term evolution of massive black hole binaries. IV. Mergers of galaxies with collisionally relaxed nuclei
• Three-Dimensional Simulations of Tidally Disrupted Solar-Type Stars and the Observational Signatures of Shock Breakout
• Science with the TianQin observatory: Preliminary result on extreme-mass-ratio inspirals
• Galaxy bulges and their massive black holes: a review
• Dynamical evolution of the young stars in the Galactic center: N-body simulations of the S-stars
• The distribution of old stars around the Milky Way's central black hole I: Star counts
• The nuclear cluster of the Milky Way: Our primary testbed for the interaction of a dense star cluster with a massive black hole
• Steady state relativistic stellar dynamics around a massive black hole
• The Nuclear Cluster of the Milky Way: Total Mass and Luminosity (long version)
• Illuminating Massive Black Holes With White Dwarfs: Orbital Dynamics and High Energy Transients from Tidal Interactions
• Dynamics of galaxy cores and supermassive black holes
• Investigating the Relativistic Motion of the Stars Near the Supermassive Black Hole in the Galactic Center
• The Fate of Binaries in the Galactic Center: The Mundane and the Exotic
• Tidal effects on small bodies by massive black holes
• On the tidal evolution of the orbits of low-mass satellites around black holes
• On incorporating post-Newtonian effects in N-body dynamics
• Secular Evolution Of Binaries Near Massive Black Holes: Formation of compact binaries, merger/collision products and G2-like objects
• Stellar Tidal Disruption Events in General Relativity
• Secular Stellar Dynamics near a Massive Black Hole
• Tidal Disruptions of Main Sequence Stars -- I. Observable Quantities and their Dependence on Stellar and Black Hole Mass
• Sgr A* flares: tidal disruption of asteroids and planets?
• The Effect of Star--Disk Interactions on Highly Eccentric Stellar Orbits in Active Galactic Nuclei: A Disk Loss Cone and Implications for Stellar Tidal Disruption Events
• Gamma-ray emission from massive stars interacting with AGN jets
• Binary dynamics near a massive black hole
• Dynamical Cusp Regeneration
• High Eccentricities and High Masses Characterize Gravitational-wave Captures in Galactic Nuclei as Seen by Earth-based Detectors
• Enhanced activity of massive black holes by stellar capture assisted by a self-gravitating accretion disc
• A new Fokker-Planck approach for relaxation-driven evolution of galactic nuclei
• The efficiency of resonant relaxation around a massive black hole
• Tidal break-up of binary stars at the Galactic center and its consequences
• Testing the black hole no-hair theorem at the galactic center: Perturbing effects of stars in the surrounding cluster
• Production of Hypervelocity Stars through Encounters with Stellar-Mass Black Holes in the Galactic Centre
• Importance of transient resonances in extreme-mass-ratio inspirals
• The presence of intermediate-mass black holes in globular clusters and their connection with extreme horizontal branch stars
• Investigating the Binarity of S0-2: Implications for its Origins and Robustness as a Probe of the Laws of Gravity around a Supermassive Black Hole
• Explaining the Orbits of the Galactic Center S-Stars
• Birth, life, and death of black hole binaries around supermassive black holes: dynamical evolution of gravitational wave sources
• Optical Transients from the Unbound Debris of Tidal Disruption
• Relativistic mergers of black hole binaries have large, similar masses, low spins and are circular
• Tidal breakup of binary stars at the Galactic Center. II. Hydrodynamic simulations
• Direct N-body simulation of the Galactic centre
• Relativistic effects on tidal disruption kicks of solitary stars
• Resonant relaxation near a massive black hole: the dependence on eccentricity
• Three-Dimensional Moving-Mesh Simulations of Galactic Center Cloud G2
• Black Hole Binaries in Galactic Nuclei and Gravitational Wave Sources
• Analytic study of mass segregation around a massive black hole
• Accretion onto Stars in the Disks of Active Galactic Nuclei
• Origin of the S Stars in the Galactic Center
• Gravitational wave bursts from the Galactic massive black hole
• Constraints on the Stellar Mass Function from Stellar Dynamics at the Galactic Center
• The distribution of stars around the Milky Way's central black hole II: Diffuse light from sub-giants and dwarfs
• Transient outburst events from tidally disrupted asteroids near white dwarfs
• The S-Star Cluster at the Center of the Milky Way: On the nature of diffuse NIR emission in the inner tenth of a parsec
• Influence of a stellar cusp on the dynamics of young stellar discs and the origin of the S-stars in the Galactic Centre
• Physical laboratory at the center of the Galaxy
• Quiescent and active galactic nuclei as factories of merging compact objects in the era of gravitational-wave astronomy
• Detection of astrophysical gravitational wave sources by TianQin and LISA
• The mass-metallicity relation of local active galaxies
• Test of Einstein equivalence principle near the Galactic center supermassive black hole
• Global torques and stochasticity as the drivers of massive black hole pairing in the young Universe
• The tune of the universe: the role of plasma in tests of strong-field gravity
• Estimating the parameters of the Sgr A* black hole
• On the origins of enigmatic stellar populations in Local Group galactic nuclei
• Spectroscopic Detection of a Cusp of Late-type Stars around the Central Black Hole in the Milky Way
• Multiple Ultralight Axionic Wave Dark Matter and Astronomical Structures
• Joint constraints on the Galactic dark matter halo and Galactic Centre from hypervelocity stars
• What stellar orbit is needed to measure the spin of the Galactic center black hole from astrometric data?
• Star Formation in the vicinity of Nuclear Black Holes: Young Stellar Objects close to Sgr A*
• On the origin of a rotating metal-poor stellar population in the Milky Way Nuclear Cluster
• Relativistic dynamics of stars near a supermassive black hole
• K-shell Emission of Neutral Iron Line from Sgr B2 Excited by Subrelativistic Protons
• The Fermi Bubble as a Source of Cosmic Rays in the Energy Range > 10E15 eV
• On the number of young stellar discs in the Galactic Centre
• On rapid migration and accretion within disks around supermassive black holes
• Clump formation through colliding stellar winds in the Galactic Centre
• A Consistent Set of Empirical Scaling Relations for Spiral Galaxies: The $(v_{\max },M_{\mathrm{DM}})$-$({\sigma }_0,M_{\mathrm{BH}},\varphi )$ Relations
• Stellar disruption events support the existence of the black hole event horizon
• Tidal disruptions of main sequence stars -- IV. Relativistic effects and dependence on black hole mass
• Revealing the Formation of the Milky Way Nuclear Star Cluster via Chemo-Dynamical Modeling
• Expectations for extreme-mass-ratio bursts from the Galactic Centre
• Aligning Retrograde Nuclear Cluster Orbits with an Active Galactic Nucleus Accretion Disc
• A cosmological view of extreme mass-ratio inspirals in nuclear star clusters
• The Galactic Center as a laboratory for theories of gravity and dark matter
• Gravitational-wave merging events from the dynamics of stellar mass binary black holes around the massive black hole in a galactic nucleus
• Coronal radiation of a cusp of spun-up stars and the X-ray luminosity of Sgr A*
• The Effectiveness of the Kozai Mechanism in the Galactic Centre
• Extreme mass ratio inspiral rates: dependence on the massive black hole mass
• Tidal disruption events from eccentric orbits and lessons learned from the noteworthy ASASSN-14ko
• Extreme-mass-ratio burst detection with TianQin
• HST Observations of the Stellar Distribution Near Sgr A*
• Probing the formation history of the nuclear star cluster at the Galactic Centre with millisecond pulsars
• Constraining ultralight bosonic dark matter with Keck observations of S2's orbit and kinematics
• Eccentricity distributions of eccentric binary black holes in galactic nuclei
• Probing Boson Stars with Extreme Mass Ratio Inspirals
• Capture of non-relativistic particles in eccentric orbits by a Kerr black hole
• On the origin of kinematic distribution of the sub-parsec young stars in the Galactic center
• Depletion of bright red giants in the Galactic center during its active phases
• Constraints on the Galactic Centre environment from Gaia hypervelocity stars
• The Eccentric and Accelerating Stellar Binary Black Hole Mergers in Galactic Nuclei: Observing in Ground and Space Gravitational Wave Observatories
• Spin Evolution of Supermassive Black Holes and Galactic Nuclei
• XMM-Newton observations of the Galactic Centre Region - II: The soft thermal emission
• Sw 1644+57/GRB 110328A: the physical origin and the composition of the relativistic outflow
• Stellar dynamics and tidal disruption events in galactic nuclei
• The hot stars in orbit around the M31 central supermassive black hole: are they young or old?
• Constraining the accretion flow density profile near Sgr A* using the $L^{\prime }$-band emission of the S2 star
• Eccentricity of HLX-1
• Counter-rotating stellar discs around a massive black hole: self-consistent, time-dependent dynamics
• Relaxation near supermassive black holes driven by nuclear spiral arms: anisotropic hypervelocity stars, S-stars and tidal disruption events
• The fate of close encounters between binary stars and binary supermassive black holes
• The Doubling of Stellar Black Hole Nuclei
• Mapping the Galactic centre's dark cluster via Resonant Relaxation
• Detecting Fundamental Vector Fields with LISA
• Accretion disk warping by resonant relaxation: The case of maser disk NGC4258
• The fate of supernova remnants near quiescent supermassive black holes
• Tests of gravity theories with Galactic Center observations
• Analytical and numerical studies of central galactic outflows powered by tidal disruption events -- a model for the Fermi bubbles?
• Spectroscopically Identified Intermediate Age Stars at 0.5 - 3 pc Distance from Sgr A*
• Equatorial and polar quasinormal modes and quasiperiodic oscillations of quantum deformed Kerr black hole
• Unrecognized Astrometric Confusion in the Galactic Centre
• The quenching of star formation in accretion-driven clumpy turbulent tori of active galactic nuclei
• Cosmon Lumps and Horizonless Black Holes
• Modified evolution of stellar binaries from supermassive black hole binaries
• The Influence of Disk Composition on the Evolution of Stars in the Disks of Active Galactic Nuclei
• Photometric Classification of Stars Around the Milky Way's Central Black Hole: I. Central Parsec
• The effect of relativistic precession on light curves of tidal disruption events
• Constraints on alternative theories of gravity with observations of the Galactic Center
• The secular evolution of discrete quasi-Keplerian systems. II. Application to a multi-mass axisymmetric disc around a supermassive black hole
• On energetics and progenitors of Odd Radio Circles: A causal connection with tidal disruption of stars?
• Stellar Relaxation Processes Near the Galactic Massive Black Hole
• The Merger Rate of Black Holes in a Primordial Black Hole Cluster
• Sculpting the Stellar Cusp in the Galactic Center
• Resonant Relaxation near the Massive Black Hole in the Galactic Center
• Prospect for UV observations from the Moon
• Massive perturbers in the galactic center
• Probing the formation of planetesimals in the Galactic Centre using Sgr A* flares
• Characteristic temperatures of exchange biased systems
• Model Atmospheres for Irradiated Giant Stars: Implications for the Galactic Center
• The former companion of the hyper-velocity star S5-HVS1
• A stellar fly-by close to the Galactic centre: Can we detect stars on highly-relativistic orbits?
• A thermonuclear supernova interacting with hydrogen- and helium-deficient circumstellar material. SN 2020aeuh as a SN Ia-CSM-C/O?
• The contribution of young core-collapse supernova remnants to the X-ray emission near quiescent supermassive black holes
• An adaptive scheduling tool to optimize measurements to reach a scientific objective: methodology and application to the measurements of stellar orbits in the Galactic Center
• Possibility of Measuring spin precession of the nearest supermassive black hole by S stars
• Eccentricity Boost of Stars Around Shrinking Massive Black Hole Binaries
• Star formation in the central 0.5 pc of the Milky Way
• The GWs from the S-stars revolving around the SMBH at Sgr A*
• Going out with a bang: compact object collisions resulting from supernovae in binary systems
• The Effect of Dark Matter on Stars at the Galactic Center: The Paradox of Youth Problem
• Exotic orbits due to spin-spin coupling around Kerr black holes
• Self-consistent Solutions of Evolving Nuclear Star Clusters with Two-Dimensional Monte-Carlo Dynamical Simulations
• Black holes surrounded by massive vector fields in Kaluza-Klein gravity
• The Galactic Center
• The Near-Infrared Spectrum of the Nuclear Star Cluster: Looking Below the Tip of the Iceberg and Comparisons with Extragalactic Nuclei
• Probabilistic eccentricity bifurcation for stars around shrinking massive black hole binaries
• Observational constraints on the formation and evolution of the Milky Way nuclear star cluster with Keck and Gemini
• Missing bright red giants in the Galactic center: A fingerprint of its once active state?
• Tidal disruption events as the origin of the eROSITA and Fermi bubbles
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• Constraining Kerr supermassive black hole properties using gravitational waves from inspiraling stellar-mass binary black holes