Sgr A* envelope explosion and the young stars in the centre of the Milky Way
Open accessAbstract
Sgr A* is the supermassive black hole residing in the centre of the Milky Way. There is plenty of observational evidence that a massive gas cloud fell into the central parsec of the Milky Way ∼6 Myr ago, triggering formation of a disc of young stars and activating Sgr A*. In addition to the disc, there is an unexplained population of young stars on randomly oriented orbits. Here we hypothesize that these young stars were formed by fragmentation of a massive quasi-spherical gas shell driven out from Sgr A* potential well by an energetic outflow. To account for the properties of the observed stars, the shell must be more massive than 105 solar masses, be launched from inside ∼0.01 pc, and the feedback outflow has to be highly super-Eddington albeit for a brief period of time, producing kinetic energy of at least 1055 erg. The young stars in the central parsec of the Galaxy may be a unique example of stars formed from atomic rather than molecular hydrogen, and forged by extreme pressure of black hole outflows.
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The origin of the nuclear young stellar disks has been explained in terms of star-formation in an accretion disk around Sgr A*.
“The origin of the nuclear young stellar disks has been explained in terms of star-formation in an accretion disk around Sgr A ∗ (Levin & Beloborodov 2003; Bonnell & Rice 2008; Nayakshin & Zubovas 2018; Generozov et al. 2022).”
From The Fermi/eROSITA bubbles: a look into the nuclear outflow from the Milky Way (2024) · cites this paper as Nayakshin & Zubovas 2018
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The Fermi/eROSITA bubbles: a look into the nuclear outflow from the Milky Way
Sarkar, K. C. (2024) · The Astronomy and Astrophysics Review · doi:10.1007/s00159-024-00152-1 · Cited by 34 · see citing works
- Authors
- Nayakshin, S., & Zubovas, K.
- Affiliations
- University of Leicester (GB)
- Vilnius University (LT)
- Corresponding author
- Nayakshin, Sergei
- Venue
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2018-05-15
- Volume
- 478
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- L127-L131
- ISSN
- 1745-3925 (ISSN-L)
- 1745-3933
- OpenAlex
- W2796045901
- Cited by
- 12
- References
- 57
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 4 · 2022: 1 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 2
- FWCI
- 0.66
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- arxiv.org
- Locations
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters (publishedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Leicester Research Archive (University of Leicester) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Funders
- Science and Technology Facilities Council (ST/K001000/1)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
- Keywords
- Sgr A*, supermassive black holes, Galactic Center, young stars, black hole feedback, central parsec
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