{
  "id": "0909.1318",
  "version": "v2",
  "published": "2009-09-08T13:37:27.000Z",
  "updated": "2010-06-02T01:02:14.000Z",
  "title": "The Distribution of Stars and Stellar Remnants at the Galactic Center",
  "authors": [
    "David Merritt"
  ],
  "comment": "ApJ, accepted",
  "categories": [
    "astro-ph.GA",
    "astro-ph.CO"
  ],
  "abstract": "Motivated by recent observations that suggest a low density of old stars around the Milky Way supermassive black hole, models for the nuclear star cluster are considered that have not yet reached a steady state under the influence of gravitational encounters. A core of initial radius 1-1.5 pc evolves to a size of approximately 0.5 pc after 10 Gyr, roughly the size of the observed core. The absence of a Bahcall-Wolf cusp is naturally explained in these models, without the need for fine-tuning or implausible initial conditions. In the absence of a cusp, the time for a 10-solar-mass black hole to spiral in to the Galactic center from an initial distance of 5 pc can be much greater than 10 Gyr. Assuming that the stellar black holes had the same phase-space distribution initially as the stars, their density after 5-10 Gyr is predicted to rise very steeply going into the stellar core, but could remain substantially below the densities inferred from steady-state models that include a steep density cusp in the stars. Possible mechanisms for the creation of the parsec-scale initial core include destruction of stars on centrophilic orbits in a pre-existing triaxial nucleus, inhibited star formation near the supermassive black hole, or ejection of stars by a massive binary. The implications of these models are discussed for the rates of gravitational-wave inspiral events, as well as other physical processes that depend on a high density of stars or stellar mass black holes near Sagittarius A*.",
  "revisions": [
    {
      "version": "v2",
      "updated": "2010-06-02T01:02:14.000Z"
    }
  ],
  "analyses": {
    "keywords": [
      "galactic center",
      "stellar remnants",
      "distribution",
      "milky way supermassive black hole",
      "stellar mass black holes"
    ],
    "tags": [
      "journal article"
    ],
    "publication": {
      "doi": "10.1088/0004-637X/718/2/739",
      "journal": "The Astrophysical Journal",
      "year": 2010,
      "month": "Aug",
      "volume": 718,
      "number": 2,
      "pages": 739
    },
    "note": {
      "typesetting": "TeX",
      "pages": 0,
      "language": "en",
      "license": "arXiv",
      "status": "editable",
      "inspire": 830530,
      "adsabs": "2010ApJ...718..739M"
    }
  }
}