Getting a kick out of the stellar disk(s) in the galactic center

TL;DR

This paper explores how binary star interactions in the Galactic center's nuclear disk could explain the presence of outlying young stars with high eccentricities and inclinations, suggesting a dynamic ejection process.

Contribution

It proposes that binary interactions can account for the observed outlying stars, offering a new explanation for stellar dynamics in the Galactic center.

Findings

Binary interactions can eject stars from the nuclear disk.

Ejected stars exhibit high eccentricities and inclinations.

Binary heating influences disk evolution.

Abstract

Recent observations of the Galactic center revealed a nuclear disk of young OB stars, in addition to many similar outlying stars with higher eccentricities and/or high inclinations relative to the disk (some of them possibly belonging to a second disk). Binaries in such nuclear disks, if they exist in non-negligible fractions, could have a major role in the evolution of the disks through binary heating of this stellar system. We suggest that interactions with/in binaries may explain some (or all) of the observed outlying young stars in the Galactic center. Such stars could have been formed in a disk, and later on kicked out from it through binary related interactions, similar to ejection of high velocity runaway OB stars in young clusters throughout the galaxy.