The distribution of stars near the super-massive black hole in the Galactic Center

Abstract

We analyze three sets of infrared star counts in the inner ~0.5 pc of the Galactic Center. We perform statistical tests on the star counts and model in detail the extinction field and the effects of dwarf-giant collisions on the luminosity function. We find that both the star counts and the depletion of the brightest stars in the inner ~0.05 pc can be explained by a r^-αstellar cusp with αin the range 3/2 to 7/4, in which the envelopes of the brightest giants are destroyed by stellar collisions. Such a cusp is consistent with the Bahcall-Wolf solution for the distribution of stars that have undergone two-body relaxation around a black hole. We show that systematic uncertainties due to variable extinction and unrelaxed stars are probably small, but deeper star counts are required to confirm these results. We estimate that the tidal disruption rate of cusp stars by the black hole is few x 10^-5 yr^-1.

arXiv commentApJ accepted. 35 pages, 9 figures

References in corpus (11)

• The Demography of Massive Dark Objects in Galaxy Centres
• High Proper Motion Stars in the Vicinity of Sgr A*: Evidence for a Supermassive Black Hole at the Center of Our Galaxy
• The Luminosity Function and Mass Function in the Galactic Bulge
• Models of Galaxies with Central Black Holes: Adiabatic Growth in Spherical Galaxies
• The black hole mass distribution in early-type galaxies: cusps in HST photometry interpreted through adiabatic black hole growth
• JHKL Photometry and the K-band Luminosity Function at the Galactic Center
• Implications of New JHK Photometry and a Deep Infrared Luminosity Function for the Galactic Bulge
• Red giant collisions in the galactic centre
• Near-Infrared Microlensing of Stars by the Super-Massive Black Hole in the Galactic Center
• The Stellar Content Near the Galactic Center
• The Near-Infrared Photometric Properties of Bright Giants in the Central Regions of the Galactic Bulge

Cited by in corpus (85)

• The Galactic Center Massive Black Hole and Nuclear Star Cluster
• Chandra X-ray Spectroscopic Imaging of Sgr A* and the Central Parsec of the Galaxy
• The First Measurement of Spectral Lines in a Short-Period Star Bound to the Galaxy's Central Black Hole: A Paradox of Youth
• Formation of Galactic Nuclei
• The Stellar Cusp Around the Supermassive Black Hole in the Galactic Center
• Intermediate and Extreme Mass-Ratio Inspirals -- Astrophysics, Science Applications and Detection using LISA
• The Supermassive Black Hole at the Galactic Center
• Stellar Processes Near the Massive Black Hole in the Galactic Center
• The structure of the nuclear stellar cluster of the Milky Way
• Stellar remnants in galactic nuclei: mass segregation
• Strong mass segregation around a massive black hole
• Testing Properties of the Galactic Center Black Hole Using Stellar Orbits
• Time-Dependent Models for Dark Matter at the Galactic Center
• Stellar Orbits Near Sagittarius A*
• 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 rate in dense galactic cusps containing a supermassive binary black hole
• Eccentric Black Hole Gravitational-Wave Capture Sources in Galactic Nuclei: Distribution of Binary Parameters
• Sgr A* Companion S0-2: A Probe of Very High-Mass Star Formation
• A new Monte Carlo code for star cluster simulations: II. Central black hole and stellar collisions
• The nuclear cluster of the Milky Way: Our primary testbed for the interaction of a dense star cluster with a massive black hole
• Dynamics of galaxy cores and supermassive black holes
• A New Secular Instability of Eccentric Stellar Disks Around Supermassive Black Holes, with Application to the Galactic Center
• The fate of star clusters near the Galactic center I: Analytic considerations
• A comprehensive set of simulations of high-velocity collisions between main sequence stars
• The distribution of stars around the Milky Way's black hole III: Comparison with simulations
• Red giant stellar collisions in the Galactic Centre
• A new Monte Carlo code for star cluster simulations: I. Relaxation
• Gravitational waves from stars orbiting the Sagittarius A* black hole
• Dynamical Cusp Regeneration
• Collisionally Regenerated Dark Matter Structures in Galactic Nuclei
• Binary dynamics near a massive black hole
• The presence of intermediate-mass black holes in globular clusters and their connection with extreme horizontal branch stars
• X-ray flares from Sgr A*: star-disk interactions?
• The Formation of Intermediate Mass Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei
• Resonant relaxation near a massive black hole: the dependence on eccentricity
• Analytic study of mass segregation around a massive black hole
• Gravitating discs around black holes
• Full Three Dimensional Orbits For Multiple Stars on Close Approaches to the Central Supermassive Black Hole
• Gravitational wave bursts from the Galactic massive black hole
• Very Wide Binary Stars as the Primary Source of Stellar Collisions in the Galaxy
• The distribution of stars around the Milky Way's central black hole II: Diffuse light from sub-giants and dwarfs
• High Precision Stellar Radial Velocities in the Galactic Center
• Formation and evolution of nuclear star clusters with in-situ star-formation: Nuclear cores and age segregation
• Systolic and Hyper-Systolic Algorithms for the Gravitational N-Body Problem, with an Application to Brownian Motion
• The stars of the galactic center
• Weighing the cusp at the Galactic Centre
• Constraining the initial mass function of stars in the Galactic Centre
• On formation rate of close binaries consisting of a super-massive black hole and a white dwarf
• Spectroscopic Detection of a Cusp of Late-type Stars around the Central Black Hole in the Milky Way
• On the Origin of Sub-Subgiant Stars II: Binary Mass Transfer, Envelope Stripping, and Magnetic Activity
• Constraining the dark cusp in the Galactic Center by long-period binaries
• Stellar Energy Relaxation around A Massive Black Hole
• On Socially Distant Neighbors: Using Binaries to Constrain the Density of Objects in the Galactic Center
• The fragmenting past of the disk at the Galactic Center : The culprit for the missing red giants
• A cosmological view of extreme mass-ratio inspirals in nuclear star clusters
• Habitability in Different Milky Way Stellar Environments: a Stellar Interaction Dynamical Approach
• Coronal radiation of a cusp of spun-up stars and the X-ray luminosity of Sgr A*
• Supernova Kicks and Dynamics of Compact Remnants in the Galactic Centre
• Can Star-Disk Collisions Explain the Missing Red Giants Problem in the Galactic Center?
• Constraining ultralight bosonic dark matter with Keck observations of S2's orbit and kinematics
• Radial Velocities of Stars in the Galactic Center
• On the Newtonian and Spin-induced Perturbations felt by the Stars Orbiting around the Massive Black Hole in the Galactic Center
• Enhanced Microlensing by Stars Around the Black Hole in the Galactic Center
• On the origin of kinematic distribution of the sub-parsec young stars in the Galactic center
• Star Formation and Dynamics in the Galactic Centre
• Mass Distribution in the Central Few Parsecs of Our Galaxy
• The hot stars in orbit around the M31 central supermassive black hole: are they young or old?
• Close stellar encounters at the Galactic Centre I: The effect on the observed stellar populations
• A Measurement of Proper Motions of SiO Maser Sources in the Galactic Center with the VLBA
• Making Bright Giants Invisible At The Galactic Centre
• Constraining the Stellar Mass Function in the Galactic Center via Mass Loss from Stellar Collisions
• Millisecond Pulsars as Probes of Mass Segregation in the Galactic Center
• Stellar transits in active galactic nuclei
• Young stars in the Galactic Centre: a potential intermediate-mass star origin
• $G$ Objects and primordial black holes
• Sculpting the Stellar Cusp in the Galactic Center
• On the formation of an eccentric disk via disruption of a bulge core near a massive black hole
• Gravitational Waves from Primordial Black Hole Dark Matter Spikes
• Star formation in the central 0.5 pc of the Milky Way
• On the Missing Red Giants near the Galactic Center
• The Near-Infrared Spectrum of the Nuclear Star Cluster: Looking Below the Tip of the Iceberg and Comparisons with Extragalactic Nuclei
• Black Hole Survival Guide: Searching for Stars in the Galactic Center That Endure Partial Tidal Disruption
• Composition of the galactic center star cluster: Population analysis from adaptive optics narrow band spectral energy distributions