| | |
| | |
Stat |
Members: 3643 Articles: 2'488'730 Articles rated: 2609
29 March 2024 |
|
| | | |
|
Article overview
| |
|
Dynamics of a Massive Black Hole at the Center of a Dense Stellar System | Pinaki Chatterjee
; Lars Hernquist
; Abraham Loeb
; | Date: |
16 Jul 2001 | Subject: | astro-ph | Abstract: | We develop a simple physical model to describe the dynamics of a massive point-like object, such as a black hole, near the center of a dense stellar system. It is shown that the total force on this body can be separated into two independent parts, one of which is the slowly varying influence of the aggregate stellar system, and the other being the rapidly fluctuating stochastic force due to discrete encounters with individual stars. For the particular example of a stellar system distributed according to a Plummer model, it is shown that the motion of the black hole is then similar to that of a Brownian particle in a harmonic potential, and we analyze its dynamics using an approach akin to Langevin’s solution of the Brownian motion problem. The equations are solved to obtain the average values, time-autocorrelation functions, and probability distributions of the black hole’s position and velocity. By comparing these results to N-body simulations, we demonstrate that this model provides a very good statistical description of the actual black hole dynamics. As an application of our model, we use our results to derive a lower limit on the mass of the black hole Sgr A* in the Galactic center. | Source: | arXiv, astro-ph/0107287 | Services: | Forum | Review | PDF | Favorites |
|
|
No review found.
Did you like this article?
Note: answers to reviews or questions about the article must be posted in the forum section.
Authors are not allowed to review their own article. They can use the forum section.
browser claudebot
|
| |
|
|
|
| News, job offers and information for researchers and scientists:
| |