Abstract
The motion of a black hole (BH) about the centre of gravity of its host galaxy induces a strong response from the surrounding stars. We revisit the case of a harmonic potential and argue that half of the stars on circular orbits in that potential shift to an orbit of lower energy, while the other half receives a positive boost. The black hole itself remains on an orbit of fixed amplitude and merely acts as a catalyst for the evolution of the stellar energy distribution function f(E). We then consider the response of binary stars to the motion of a central BH, and find that they are selectively heated up to disruption according to the binary’s total mass and semi-major axis a. This enhanced depletion of binaries (compared with the case when the BH is fixed) might hold an important key to a more complete history of BH dynamics at the heart of the Milky Way.
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Notes
- 1.
Statistical root-n noise \(\sim 25\%\) remains large owing to the small number of sources but is inconsequential to the argument being developed here.
- 2.
These figures are robust to details of the stellar cusp mass profile, so for instance a steeper density profile (\(3/2 \ge \gamma \le 7/4 < 2\)) would yield \(R_o\) in the range 0.2 to 0.3 pc; and \(\gamma = 0\), \(R_o \simeq 0.6 \) pc.
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Acknowledgements
It is a pleasure to thank S. Mikkola for generously forwarding me a tailor-made version of his code AR4bb with which the calculations outlined here were performed. I would also like to thank J.S. Bagla for his invitation to revisit the problem of black hole dynamics, and T. Padmanabhan for sharing his insight into galactic dynamics over the years.
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Boily, C.M. (2017). Resonant Disruption of Binary Stars by a Catalytic Black Hole. In: Bagla, J., Engineer, S. (eds) Gravity and the Quantum. Fundamental Theories of Physics, vol 187. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51700-1_3
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