Getting a kick out of the stellar disk(s) in the galactic center

Hagai B. Perets, Gábor Kupi & Tal Alexander

Paper: IAU-246 proceedings


Abstract:

Recent observations of the Galactic center revealed a nuclear disk of young OB stars, in addition to many similar outlying stars with higher eccentricities and/or high inclinations relative to the disk (some of them possibly belonging to a second disk). Binaries in such nuclear disks, if they exist in non-negligible fractions, could have a major role in the evolution of the disks through binary heating of this stellar system. We suggest that interactions with/in binaries may explain some (or all) of the observed outlying young stars in the Galactic center. Such stars could have been formed in a disk, and later on kicked out from it through binary related interactions, similar to ejection of high velocity runaway OB stars in young clusters throughout the galaxy.


Preprints available from the authors at hagai.perets@weizmann.ac.il , or the raw TeX (no figures) if you click here.

Back to the gcnews home-page.