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Abstract
We follow the near radial infall of a prolate cloud on to a 4 x 10(6) M-circle dot supermassive black hole in the Galactic Centre using smoothed particle hydrodynamics. We show that a prolate cloud oriented perpendicular to its orbital plane naturally produces a spread in angular momenta in the gas which can translate into misaligned discs as is seen in the young stars orbiting Sagittarius A*. A turbulent or otherwise highly structured cloud is necessary to avoid cancelling too much angular momentum through shocks at closest approach. Our standard model of a 2 x 10(4) M-circle dot gas cloud brought about the formation of a disc within 0.3 pc from the black hole and a larger, misaligned streamer at 0.5 pc. A total of 1.5 x 10(4) M-circle dot of gas formed these structures. Our exploration of the simulation parameter space showed that when star formation occurred, it resulted in top-heavy initial mass functions with stars on eccentric orbits with semi-major axes 0.02-0.3 pc and inclinations following the gas discs and streamers. We suggest that the single event of an infalling prolate cloud can explain the occurrence of multiple misaligned discs of young stars.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 353-365 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society |
| Volume | 433 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Jul 2013 |
Keywords
- accretion, accretion discs
- hydrodynamics
- stars: formation
- Galaxy: centre
- SMOOTHED PARTICLE HYDRODYNAMICS
- NUCLEAR STAR CLUSTER
- SGR-A-ASTERISK
- MILKY-WAY
- RADIATIVE-TRANSFER
- ACCRETION DISKS
- YOUNG STARS
- MOLECULAR CLOUDS
- STELLAR ORBITS
- CENTRAL PARSEC
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Dive into the research topics of 'Misaligned streamers around a Galactic Centre black hole from a single cloud's infall'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 3 Finished
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Astrophysics at St Andrews:2012 - 2014: Astrophysics at St Andrews: 2012 - 2014
Horne, K. (PI)
Science & Technology Facilities Council
1/10/11 → 31/03/12
Project: Standard
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Wide Area Search for Planets: Project support for the Wide Area Search for Planets
Cameron, A. (PI)
Science & Technology Facilities Council
1/08/08 → 31/07/11
Project: Standard
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