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S. Berukoff, B. Hansen (UCLA)
A topic of some recent debate is the existence of the IRS 16 complex near the Galactic center, and specifically, how to explain the presence of young O stars orbiting the central supermassive black hole (SBH). Hansen and Milosjavelic (2003) proposed that a stellar cluster harboring an intermediate-mass black hole could sink via dynamical friction, dragging stars with it and allowing the deposition of its stars into orbits near the SBH. We present the results of N-body simulations of a small cluster being dragged in by such a black hole, providing a mapping between their phase space of the initial cluster members and their final phase space parameters orbiting the SBH. To elucidate peculiarities of some stellar orbits, and to understand separately the cluster dynamics and the cluster-SBH interaction, the results of three-body simulations are also given.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 5
© 2004. The American Astronomical Society.