4.7 Article

Weighing the young stellar discs around Sgr A*

Journal

MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Volume 366, Issue 4, Pages 1410-1414

Publisher

OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.09906.x

Keywords

accretion, accretion discs; stars : formation; Galaxy : centre; galaxies : active

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It is believed that young massive stars orbiting Sgr A* in two stellar discs on scales of similar to 0.1-0.2 parsec were formed either farther out in the Galaxy and then quickly migrated inwards or in situ in a massive self-gravitating disc. Comparing N-body evolution of stellar orbits with observational constraints, we set upper limits on the masses of the two stellar systems. These masses turn out to be a few times lower than the expected total stellar mass estimated from the observed young high-mass stellar population and the standard galactic initial mass function (IMF). If these stars were formed in situ, in a massive self-gravitating disc, our results suggest that the formation of low-mass stars was suppressed by a factor of at least a few, requiring a top-heavy IMF for stars formed near Sgr A*.

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