330 research outputs found
Supernovae in the Central Parsec: A Mechanism for Producing Spatially Anisotropic Hypervelocity Stars
Several tens of hyper-velocity stars (HVSs) have been discovered escaping our
Galaxy. These stars share a common origin in the Galactic centre and are
distributed anisotropically in Galactic longitude and latitude. We examine the
possibility that HVSs may be created as the result of supernovae occurring
within binary systems in a disc of stars around Sgr A* over the last 100 Myr.
Monte Carlo simulations show that the rate of binary disruption is ~10^-4
yr^-1, comparable to that of tidal disruption models. The supernova-induced HVS
production rate (\Gamma_HVS) is significantly increased if the binaries are
hardened via migration through a gaseous disc. Moderate hardening gives
\Gamma_HVS ~ 2*10^-7 yr^-1 and an estimated population of ~20 HVSs in the last
100 Myr. Supernova-induced HVS production requires the internal and external
orbital velocity vectors of the secondary binary component to be aligned when
the binary is disrupted. This leaves an imprint of the disc geometry on the
spatial distribution of the HVSs, producing a distinct anisotropy.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical
Journa
A Semi-Analytic dynamical friction model that reproduces core stalling
We present a new semi-analytic model for dynamical friction based on
Chandrasekhar's formalism. The key novelty is the introduction of physically
motivated, radially varying, maximum and minimum impact parameters. With these,
our model gives an excellent match to full N-body simulations for isotropic
background density distributions, both cuspy and shallow, without any
fine-tuning of the model parameters. In particular, we are able to reproduce
the dramatic core-stalling effect that occurs in shallow/constant density
cores, for the first time. This gives us new physical insight into the
core-stalling phenomenon. We show that core stalling occurs in the limit in
which the product of the Coulomb logarithm and the local fraction of stars with
velocity lower than the infalling body tends to zero. For cuspy backgrounds,
this occurs when the infalling mass approaches the enclosed background mass.
For cored backgrounds, it occurs at larger distances from the centre, due to a
combination of a rapidly increasing minimum impact parameter and a lack of slow
moving stars in the core. This demonstrates that the physics of core-stalling
is likely the same for both massive infalling objects and low-mass objects
moving in shallow density backgrounds. We implement our prescription for
dynamical friction in the direct summation code NBODY6 as an analytic
correction for stars that remain within the Roche volume of the infalling
object. This approach is computationally efficient, since only stars in the
inspiralling system need to be evolved with direct summation. Our method can be
applied to study a variety of astrophysical systems, including young star
clusters orbiting near the Galactic Centre; globular clusters moving within the
Galaxy; and dwarf galaxies orbiting within dark matter halos.Comment: 16 pages, 21 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRA
A semi-analytic dynamical friction model for cored galaxies
We present a dynamical friction model based on Chandrasekhar's formula that
reproduces the fast inspiral and stalling experienced by satellites orbiting
galaxies with a large constant density core. We show that the fast inspiral
phase does not owe to resonance. Rather, it owes to the background velocity
distribution function for the constant density cores being dissimilar from the
usually-assumed Maxwellian distribution. Using the correct background velocity
distribution function and the semi-analytic model from Petts et al. (2015), we
are able to correctly reproduce the infall rate in both cored and cusped
potentials. However, in the case of large cores, our model is no longer able to
correctly capture core-stalling. We show that this stalling owes to the tidal
radius of the satellite approaching the size of the core. By switching off
dynamical friction when rt(r) = r (where rt is the tidal radius at the
satellite's position) we arrive at a model which reproduces the N-body results
remarkably well. Since the tidal radius can be very large for constant density
background distributions, our model recovers the result that stalling can occur
for Ms/Menc << 1, where Ms and Menc are the mass of the satellite and the
enclosed galaxy mass, respectively. Finally, we include the contribution to
dynamical friction that comes from stars moving faster than the satellite. This
next-to-leading order effect becomes the dominant driver of inspiral near the
core region, prior to stalling.Comment: 13 pages, 12 figures, resubmitted to MNRAS after responding to
feedback from the refere
On the origin of hyperfast neutron stars
We propose an explanation for the origin of hyperfast neutron stars (e.g. PSR
B1508+55, PSR B2224+65, RX J0822-4300) based on the hypothesis that they could
be the remnants of a symmetric supernova explosion of a high-velocity massive
star (or its helium core) which attained its peculiar velocity (similar to that
of the neutron star) in the course of a strong three- or four-body dynamical
encounter in the core of a young massive star cluster. This hypothesis implies
that the dense cores of star clusters (located either in the Galactic disk or
near the Galactic centre) could also produce the so-called hypervelocity stars
-- the ordinary stars moving with a speed of ~1000 km/s.Comment: 2 pages, to appear in Dynamical Evolution of Dense Stellar Systems,
Proceed. of the IAU Symp. 246 (Capri, Sept. 2007), eds. E.Vesperini, M.
Giersz, and A. Sill
High-velocity runaway stars from three-body encounters
We performed numerical simulations of dynamical encounters between hard
massive binaries and a very massive star (VMS; formed through runaway mergers
of ordinary stars in the dense core of a young massive star cluster), in order
to explore the hypothesis that this dynamical process could be responsible for
the origin of high-velocity (\geq 200-400 km/s) early or late B-type stars. We
estimated the typical velocities produced in encounters between very tight
massive binaries and VMSs (of mass of \geq 200 Msun) and found that about 3-4
per cent of all encounters produce velocities of \geq 400 km/s, while in about
2 per cent of encounters the escapers attain velocities exceeding the Milky
Ways's escape velocity. We therefore argue that the origin of high-velocity
(\geq 200-400 km/s) runaway stars and at least some so-called hypervelocity
stars could be associated with dynamical encounters between the tightest
massive binaries and VMSs formed in the cores of star clusters. We also
simulated dynamical encounters between tight massive binaries and single
ordinary 50-100 Msun stars. We found that from 1 to \simeq 4 per cent of these
encounters can produce runaway stars with velocities of \geq 300-400 km/s
(typical of the bound population of high-velocity halo B-type stars) and
occasionally (in less than 1 per cent of encounters) produce hypervelocity
(\geq 700 km/s) late B-type escapers.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure, to appear in Star Clusters -- Basic Galactic
Building Blocks throughout Time and Space, Proceed. of the IAU Symp. 266,
eds. R. de Grijs and J. Lepin
The Primordial Binary Population in OB Associations
For understanding the process of star formation it is essential to know how
many stars are formed as singles or in multiple systems, as a function of
environment and binary parameters. This requires a characterization of the
primordial binary population, which we define as the population of binaries
that is present just after star formation has ceased, but before dynamical and
stellar evolution have significantly altered its characteristics. In this
article we present the first results of our adaptive optics survey of 200
(mainly) A-type stars in the nearby OB association Sco OB2. We report the
discovery of 47 new candidate companions of Sco OB2 members. The next step will
be to combine these observations with detailed simulations of young star
clusters, in order to find the primordial binary population.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figure, poster paper to appear in proceedings of IAU Coll.
191 "The environments and evolution of binary and multiple stars
Hyperfast pulsars as the remnants of massive stars ejected from young star clusters
Recent proper motion and parallax measurements for the pulsar PSR B1508+55
indicate a transverse velocity of ~1100 km/s, which exceeds earlier
measurements for any neutron star. The spin-down characteristics of PSR
B1508+55 are typical for a non-recycled pulsar, which implies that the velocity
of the pulsar cannot have originated from the second supernova disruption of a
massive binary system. The high velocity of PSR B1508+55 can be accounted for
by assuming that it received a kick at birth or that the neutron star was
accelerated after its formation in the supernova explosion. We propose an
explanation for the origin of hyperfast neutron stars based on the hypothesis
that they could be the remnants of a symmetric supernova explosion of a
high-velocity massive star which attained its peculiar velocity (similar to
that of the pulsar) in the course of a strong dynamical three- or four-body
encounter in the core of dense young star cluster. To check this hypothesis we
investigated three dynamical processes involving close encounters between: (i)
two hard massive binaries, (ii) a hard binary and an intermediate-mass black
hole, and (iii) a single star and a hard binary intermediate-mass black hole.
We find that main-sequence O-type stars cannot be ejected from young massive
star clusters with peculiar velocities high enough to explain the origin of
hyperfast neutron stars, but lower mass main-sequence stars or the stripped
helium cores of massive stars could be accelerated to hypervelocities. Our
explanation for the origin of hyperfast pulsars requires a very dense stellar
environment of the order of 10^6 -10^7 stars pc^{-3}. Although such high
densities may exist during the core collapse of young massive star clusters, we
caution that they have never been observed.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, 1 table, accepted to MNRA
A Hybrid N-Body Code Incorporating Algorithmic Regularization and Post-Newtonian Forces
We describe a novel N-body code designed for simulations of the central
regions of galaxies containing massive black holes. The code incorporates
Mikkola's 'algorithmic' chain regularization scheme including post-Newtonian
terms up to PN2.5 order. Stars moving beyond the chain are advanced using a
fourth-order integrator with forces computed on a GRAPE board. Performance
tests confirm that the hybrid code achieves better energy conservation, in less
elapsed time, than the standard scheme and that it reproduces the orbits of
stars tightly bound to the black hole with high precision. The hybrid code is
applied to two sample problems: the effect of finite-N gravitational
fluctuations on the orbits of the S-stars; and inspiral of an intermediate-mass
black hole into the galactic center.Comment: 12 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
Hypervelocity Stars III. The Space Density and Ejection History of Main Sequence Stars from the Galactic Center
We report the discovery of 3 new unbound hypervelocity stars (HVSs), stars
traveling with such extreme velocities that dynamical ejection from a massive
black hole (MBH) is their only suggested origin. We also detect a population of
possibly bound HVSs. The significant asymmetry we observe in the velocity
distribution -- we find 26 stars with v_rf > 275 km/s and 1 star with v_rf <
-275 km/s -- shows that the HVSs must be short-lived, probably 3 - 4 Msun main
sequence stars. Any population of hypervelocity post-main sequence stars should
contain stars falling back onto the Galaxy, contrary to the observations. The
spatial distribution of HVSs also supports the main sequence interpretation:
longer-lived 3 Msun HVSs fill our survey volume; shorter-lived 4 Msun HVSs are
missing at faint magnitudes. We infer that there are 96 +- 10 HVSs of mass 3 -
4 Msun within R < 100 kpc, possibly enough HVSs to constrain ejection
mechanisms and potential models. Depending on the mass function of HVSs, we
predict that SEGUE may find up to 5 - 15 new HVSs. The travel times of our HVSs
favor a continuous ejection process, although a ~120 Myr-old burst of HVSs is
also allowed.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, accepted to ApJ, minor revision
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