The nuclear cluster of the Milky Way: our primary testbed for the interaction of a dense star cluster with a massive black hole

Schödel, R.; Feldmeier, A.; Neumayer, Nadine; Meyer, L.; Yelda, S.

doi:10.1088/0264-9381/31/24/244007

Cited by 108 publications

(100 citation statements)

References 178 publications

(440 reference statements)

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“…Kinematically, the final system is characterised by a mild tangential anisotropy within the inner 30 pc. This is consistent with proper-motion data for the MW NSC that indicate a slight degree of tangential anisotropy 17,18 . As it is apparent from the top right panel of Fig.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 90%

“…1). The flattening parameter of the NSC after 12Gyr of evolution is q ∼ 0.67, close to what observed for the MW NSC 18 . Kinematically, the final system is characterised by a mild tangential anisotropy within the inner 30 pc.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 82%

“…We found that the merging of dense stellar clusters produces a system characterised by a central and almost flat core in the density profile and an external slope of −1.8, as actually observed in the MW NSC. Moreover the NSC keeps a slight degree of tangential anisotropy and it is oblate matching recent observational data 18 . Thus, the process of consecutive infalls and merging in the inner region of the MW of massive dense clusters could provide an explanation for the formation of the Galactic NSC.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

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The formation and evolution of nuclear star clusters

Mastrobuono-Battisti¹,

Perets²

2017

The Fourteenth Marcel Grossmann Meeting

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Nuclear Star Clusters (NSCs) are dense stellar systems found at the center of a large fraction of galaxies and often hosting a massive black hole (MBH). The origin of NSCs is still unclear. Here we explore the dry merger scenario where massive and dense clusters decay and merge building up the NSC. By means of detailed N-body simulations we find that a NSC formed from infalling clusters shows many of the observed features of the Milky Way NSC. We show that the infall and merge of clusters could potentially leave many observational imprints on the NSC structure, in the form of age segregation. Finally, if intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) are present at the center of the clusters, once decayed to the galactic center, they act as massive-perturbers accelerating the relaxation of the NSC, boosting the tidal disruption rate of stars up to a value larger than the observational estimates, therefore providing a cumulative constraint on the existence of IMBHs in NSCs.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 82%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

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The formation and evolution of nuclear star clusters

Mastrobuono-Battisti¹,

Perets²

2017

The Fourteenth Marcel Grossmann Meeting

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“…Therefore, any foreground star will be strongly over-corrected to very negative colours. The intrinsic colours of cluster members are in a very narrow range of about −0.13 mag < (H−K S ) < 0.38 mag (Schödel et al 2010(Schödel et al , 2014bDo et al 2013;Cox 2000, Table 7.6, and 7.8). We used this knowledge to identify foreground stars.…”

Section: Photometrymentioning

confidence: 97%

KMOS view of the Galactic centre

Feldmeier-Krause

Neumayer

Schödel

et al. 2015

A&A

106

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Context. The Galactic centre hosts a crowded, dense nuclear star cluster with a half-light radius of 4 pc. Most of the stars in the Galactic centre are cool late-type stars, but there are also > ∼ 100 hot early-type stars in the central parsec of the Milky Way. These stars are only 3−8 Myr old. Aims. Our knowledge of the number and distribution of early-type stars in the Galactic centre is incomplete. Only a few spectroscopic observations have been made beyond a projected distance of 0.5 pc of the Galactic centre. The distribution and kinematics of earlytype stars are essential to understand the formation and growth of the nuclear star cluster. Methods. We cover the central >4 pc 2 (0.75 sq. arcmin) of the Galactic centre using the integral-field spectrograph KMOS (VLT). We extracted more than 1000 spectra from individual stars and identified early-type stars based on their spectra. Results. Our data set contains 114 bright early-type stars: 6 have narrow emission lines, 23 are Wolf-Rayet stars, 9 stars have featureless spectra, and 76 are O/B type stars. Our wide-field spectroscopic data confirm that the distribution of young stars is compact, with 90% of the young stars identified within 0.5 pc of the nucleus. We identify 24 new O/B stars primarily at large radii. We estimate photometric masses of the O/B stars and show that the total mass in the young population is > ∼ 12 000 M . The O/B stars all appear to be bound to the Milky Way nuclear star cluster, while less than 30% belong to the clockwise rotating disk. We add one new star to the sample of stars affiliated with this disk. Conclusions. The central concentration of the early-type stars is a strong argument that they have formed in situ. An alternative scenario, in which the stars formed outside the Galactic centre in a cluster that migrated to the centre, is refuted. A large part of the young O/B stars is not on the disk, which either means that the early-type stars did not all form on the same disk or that the disk is dissolving rapidly.

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“…But also a surprising number of massive early-type stars were found in this volume (Krabbe et al 1995), including massive young stars in one and possibly two disks with diameters 1 -2 rotating around the SMBH Bartko et al 2009), and a remarkable concentration of B-stars within 1" of the SMBH, the so-called S-stars . Recent reviews on the NSC can be found in Genzel, Eisenhauer & Gillessen (2010) and Schödel et al (2014b).…”

Section: Black Hole and Solar Angular Velocitymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Galaxy in Context: Structural, Kinematic, and Integrated Properties

Bland-Hawthorn¹,

Gerhard

2016

Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys.

1,433

846

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Our Galaxy, the Milky Way, is a benchmark for understanding disk galaxies. It is the only galaxy whose formation history can be studied using the full distribution of stars from faint dwarfs to supergiants. The oldest components provide us with unique insight into how galaxies form and evolve over billions of years. The Galaxy is a luminous (L ) barred spiral with a central box/peanut bulge, a dominant disk, and a diffuse stellar halo. Based on global properties, it falls in the sparsely populated "green valley" region of the galaxy colour-magnitude diagram. Here we review the key integrated, structural and kinematic parameters of the Galaxy, and point to uncertainties as well as directions for future progress. Galactic studies will continue to play a fundamental role far into the future because there are measurements that can only be made in the near field and much of contemporary astrophysics depends on such observations.

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The nuclear cluster of the Milky Way: our primary testbed for the interaction of a dense star cluster with a massive black hole

Cited by 108 publications

References 178 publications

The formation and evolution of nuclear star clusters

The formation and evolution of nuclear star clusters

KMOS view of the Galactic centre

The Galaxy in Context: Structural, Kinematic, and Integrated Properties

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