BahcallWolf cusp

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BahcallWolf cusp refers to a particular distribution of stars

around a massive black hole at the center of a galaxy or globular
cluster. If the nucleus containing the black hole is sufciently
old, exchange of orbital energy between stars drives their
distribution toward a characteristic form, such that the density
of stars, , varies with distance from the black hole, r, as

So far, no clear example of a BahcallWolf cusp has been found

in any galaxy or star cluster.[1] This may be due in part to the
difculty of resolving such a feature.

Contents
1 Distribution of stars around a supermassive black
hole
2 The Galactic Center
3 Multi-mass cusps
4 See also
5 References

Growth of a BahcallWolf cusp. The unit

of length is the black hole inuence radius.
The elapsed time is roughly one relaxation
time. The dashed line shows the steadystate density prole.

Distribution of stars around a supermassive black hole

Supermassive black holes reside in galactic nuclei. The total mass of the stars in a nucleus is roughly equal
to the mass of the supermassive black hole. In the case of the Milky Way, the mass of the supermassive
black hole is about 4 million Solar masses, and the number of stars in the nucleus is about ten million.[2]
The stars move around the supermassive black hole in elliptical orbits, similar to the orbits that planets
follow around the Sun. The orbital energy of a star is

where v is the star's velocity, r is its distance from the supermassive black hole, and M is the supermassive
black hole's mass. A star's energy remains nearly constant for many orbital periods. But after roughly one
relaxation time, most of the stars in the nucleus will have exchanged energy with other stars, causing their
orbits to change. Bahcall and Wolf[3] showed that once this has taken place, the distribution of orbital
energies has the form

which corresponds to the density =0 r 7/4. The gure shows how the density of stars evolves toward the
BahcallWolf form. The fully formed cusp[4] extends outward to a distance of roughly one-fth the
supermassive black hole's inuence radius. It is believed that relaxation times in the nuclei of small, dense
galaxies are short enough for BahcallWolf cusps to form.[5]

The Galactic Center

The inuence radius of the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center is about 23 parsecs (pc), and a
BahcallWolf cusp if present would extend outward to a distance of about 0.5 pc from the supermassive
black hole. A region of this size is easily resolved from Earth. However, no cusp is observed; instead, the
density of the oldest stars is at or even declining toward the Galactic Center.[6][7] This observation does not
necessarily rule out the existence of a BahcallWolf cusp in some still unobserved component. However,
current observations imply a relaxation time at the Galactic Center of roughly 10 billion years, comparable
with the age of the Milky Way. It is therefore likely that not enough time has elapsed for a BahcallWolf
cusp to form.[8] Alternatively, some process may have destroyed the bright stars near the supermassive black
hole.

Multi-mass cusps
The BahcallWolf solution applies to a nucleus consisting of stars of a single mass. If there is a range of
masses, each component will have a different density prole. There are two limiting cases. If the more
massive stars dominate the total density, their density will follow the BahcallWolf form, whereas the lessmassive objects will have

r3/2.[9] If the less massive stars dominate the total density, their density will

follow the BahcallWolf form, whereas the more-massive stars will follow

r2.[10]

In an old stellar population, most of the mass is either in the form of main-sequence stars, with masses 1
2 Solar masses, or in black hole remnants, with masses ~ 1020 Solar masses. It is likely that the mainsequence stars dominate the total density; so their density should follow the BahcallWolf form whereas the
black holes should have the steeper, ~ r2 prole. On the other hand, it has been suggested that the
distribution of stellar masses at the Galactic Center is "top-heavy", with a much larger fraction of black
holes.[11] If this is the case, the observed stars would be expected to attain the shallower density prole, ~
r3/2. However, even this shallower prole is probably inconsistent with what is observed at the Galactic
Center, implying that a BahcallWolf cusp never formed. The number and distribution of black hole
remnants at the Galactic Center is very poorly constrained.

See also
Stellar dynamics

References

1. Merritt, David (2013). Dynamics and Evolution of

Galactic Nuclei. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
2. Figer, D. F. (2004). "Young Massive Clusters in the
Galactic Center". In Lamers, H. J.; Smith, L. J.;
Nota, A. The Formation and Evolution of Massive
Young Star Clusters, Astronomical Society of the
Pacic Conference Series, vol. 322 322. San
Francisco: Astronomical Society of the Pacic.
p.49. ISBN1-58381-184-2.
3. Bahcall, J. N.; Wolf, R. A. (1976), "Star distribution
around a massive black hole in a globular cluster",
The Astrophysical Journal 209: 214232,
Bibcode:1991ApJ...376..439M,
doi:10.1086/154711
4. The term "cusp" refers to the fact that a graph of
density vs. radius has a cuspy appearance if plotted
on linear axes, rather than the logarithmic axes used
in the gure.
5. Merritt, David (2009), "Evolution of Nuclear Star
Clusters", The Astrophysical Journal 694: 959970,
arXiv:0802.3186, Bibcode:2009ApJ...694..959M,
doi:10.1088/0004-637X/694/2/959
6. Buchholz, R. M.; Schoedel, R.; Eckart, A. (2009),
"Composition of the galactic center star cluster.
Population analysis from adaptive optics narrow
band spectral energy distributions", Astronomy and
Astrophysics 499: 483501, arXiv:0903.2135,
Bibcode:2009A&A...499..483B, doi:10.1051/00046361/200811497

7. Do, T.; et al. (2009), "High Angular Resolution

Integral-Field Spectroscopy of the Galaxy's Nuclear
Cluster: A Missing Stellar Cusp?", Astrophysical
Journal 703: 13231337, arXiv:0908.0311,
Bibcode:2009ApJ...703.1323D, doi:10.1088/0004637x/703/2/1323
8. Merritt, David (2010), "The Distribution of Stars
and Stellar Remnants at the Galactic Center", The
Astrophysical Journal 718: 739761,
arXiv:0909.1318, Bibcode:2010ApJ...718..739M,
doi:10.1088/0004-637X/718/2/739
9. Bahcall, J. N.; Wolf, R. A. (1977), "Star distribution
around a massive black hole in a globular cluster. II
Unequal star masses", The Astrophysical Journal
216: 883907, Bibcode:1977ApJ...216..883B,
doi:10.1086/155534
10. Alexander, T.; Hopman, C. (2009), "Strong Mass
Segregation Around a Massive Black Hole", The
Astrophysical Journal 697: 18611869,
arXiv:0808.3150, Bibcode:2009ApJ...697.1861A,
doi:10.1088/0004-637X/697/2/1861
11. Bartko, H.; et, al. (2010), "An Extremely TopHeavy Initial Mass Function in the Galactic Center
Stellar Disks", The Astrophysical Journal 708: 834
840, arXiv:0908.2177,
Bibcode:2010ApJ...708..834B, doi:10.1088/0004637X/708/1/834

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Categories: Astrophysics Supermassive black holes
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