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[14.10] The Growth of Intermediate Mass Black Holes in Star Clusters

C.J. Johnson, B.W. Murphy (Butler University), H.N. Cohn, P.M. Lugger (Indiana University)

Using dynamically evolving Fokker-Planck models, we have followed the growth of central seed black holes in dense stellar systems. The models include mass loss from the stellar population due to tidal disruptions of stars, stellar collisions, and stellar evolution. Mass loss from stars due to stellar evolution is assumed to be ejected from the cluster and not accreted by the central black hole. A range of cluster masses and mass spectra are used with the initial stellar masses from 0.1 to 20 solar masses. The black hole is allowed to grow due to mass accreted from tidal disruptions and collisions of stars. The mass of the central black hole at a Hubble time ranges from approximately a few times 10² to few times 10⁴ solar masses for initial cluster masses of 10⁵ to 10⁷ solar masses, respectively, similar to the results of N-body simulations. These results are highly dependent upon the choice of initial stellar mass function. The growth of the central black hole is primarily due to tidal disruptions of stars. For more massive systems with masses greater than 10⁷ solar masses stellar collisions play more of a role in the growth of the black hole.

The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: bmurphy@butler.edu

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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35#5
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.