Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-ph5wq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T13:47:21.951Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Gravitational loss-cone instability in stellar clusters around massive black holes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2007

Evgeny V. Polyachenko
Affiliation:
Institute of Astronomy RAS, Moscow, Russia email: epolyach@inasan.ru
Valerij L. Polyachenko
Affiliation:
Institute of Astronomy RAS, Moscow, Russia email: epolyach@inasan.ru
Ilia G. Shukhman
Affiliation:
Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics, RAS SB, Irkutsk, Russia email: shukhman@iszf.irk.ru
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Stability of spherical and thin disk stellar clusters surrounding massive black holes are studied. Due to the black hole, stars with sufficiently low angular momenta escape from the system through the loss cone. We show that stability of spherical clusters crucially depend on whether the distribution of stars is monotonic or non-monotonic in angular momentum. It turns out that only non-monotonic distributions can be unstable. At the same time the instability in disk clusters is possible for both types of distributions.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2008

References

Polyachenko, V. L. 1991, Soviet Astron. Lett. 17, 371Google Scholar
Polyachenko, E. V. 2004, MNRAS 348, 345Google Scholar
Polyachenko, E. V. 2005, MNRAS 357, 559Google Scholar
Polyachenko, E. L., Polyachenko, V. L., & Shukhman, I. G. 2007, MNRAS, 379, 573Google Scholar
Tremaine, S., 2005, ApJ, 625, 143Google Scholar