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| Paper: |
The Impact of Stellar Collisions in the Galactic Center |
| Volume: |
439, The Galactic Center: a Window to the Nuclear Environment of Disk Galaxies |
| Page: |
212 |
| Authors: |
Davies, M. B.; Church, R. P.; Malmberg, D.; Nzoke, S.; Dale, J.; Freitag, M. |
| Abstract: |
We consider whether stellar collisions can explain the observed depletion
of red giants in the Galactic center. We model the stellar population with two
different IMFs: 1) the Miller-Scalo and 2) a much flatter IMF. In the former case,
low-mass main-sequence stars dominate the population, and collisions are unable
to remove red giants out to 0.4 pc although brighter red giants much closer in
may be depleted via collisions with stellar-mass black holes. For a much flatter IMF,
the stellar population is dominated by compact remnants (i.e. black holes, white dwarfs
and neutron stars). The most common collisions are then those between
main-sequence stars and compact remnants. Such encounters are likely to destroy
the main-sequence stars and thus prevent their evolution into red giants. In this
way, the red-giant population could be depleted out to 0.4 pc matching observations.
If this is the case, it implies the Galactic center contains a much larger population
of stellar-mass black holes than would be expected from a regular IMF. This may
in turn have implications for the formation and growth of the central supermassive
black hole. |
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