Natal Kicks from the Galactic Center and Implications on Their Environment and for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

Abstract Most galaxies, including the Milky Way, harbor a central supermassive black hole (SMBH) weighing millions to billions of solar masses. Surrounding these SMBHs are dense regions of stars and stellar remnants, such as neutron stars (NSs) and black holes (BHs). NSs and possibly BHs receive lar...

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Published inThe Astrophysical journal Vol. 971; no. 1; pp. 95 - 108
Main Authors Jurado, Carlos, Naoz, Smadar, Lam, Casey Y., Hoang, Bao-Minh
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Philadelphia The American Astronomical Society 01.08.2024
IOP Publishing
Subjects
Binary stars
Black holes
Compact galaxies
Compact objects
Density distribution
Galactic center
Galaxies
Galaxy distribution
Gravitational wave sources
Kinematics
Massive stars
Milky Way
Neutron stars
Slopes
Space telescopes
Stars
Stellar dynamics
Stellar evolution
Stellar orbits
Supermassive black holes
Supernovae
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Summary:Abstract Most galaxies, including the Milky Way, harbor a central supermassive black hole (SMBH) weighing millions to billions of solar masses. Surrounding these SMBHs are dense regions of stars and stellar remnants, such as neutron stars (NSs) and black holes (BHs). NSs and possibly BHs receive large natal kicks at birth on the order of hundreds of kilometers per second. The natal kicks that occur in the vicinity of an SMBH may redistribute the orbital configuration of the compact objects and alter their underlying density distribution. We model the effects of natal kicks on a Galactic center (GC) population of massive stars and stellar binaries with different initial density distributions. Using observational constraints from stellar orbits near the GC, we place an upper limit on the steepness of the initial stellar profile and find it to be core-like. In addition, we predict that 30%–70% of compact objects become unbound from the SMBH due to their kicks and will migrate throughout the Galaxy. Different BH kick prescriptions lead to distinct spatial and kinematic distributions. We suggest that the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope may be able to distinguish between these distributions and thus be able to differentiate between natal kick mechanisms.
Bibliography:AAS50609
Galaxies and Cosmology
ISSN:0004-637X
1538-4357
DOI:10.3847/1538-4357/ad55ee