A nova origin of the gas cloud at the Galactic Center ?

TL;DR

This paper proposes that the gas cloud near the Galactic Center originated from a recent nova outburst, explaining its structure and orbit through a model of ejected shell dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel nova-based model for the gas cloud's origin, accounting for its high eccentricity and morphology.

Findings

The nova shell model reproduces the observed cloud structure.

Calculated orbits support the nova origin hypothesis.

Discusses implications for stellar environment near the Galactic Center.

Abstract

The recent discovery by Gillessen and collaborators of a cloud of gas falling towards the Galactic Center on a highly eccentric orbit, diving nearly straight into the immediate neighborhood of the central supermassive black hole, raises the important question of its origin. Several models have already been proposed. Here we suggest that a recent nova outburst has ejected a ring-like shell of gas. Viewed at high inclination, that could account for the mass, head and tail structure, and the unusually high eccentricity of the observed cloud in a natural way, even as the nova moves on an orbit quite normal for the young stars in the close neighborhood of the Galactic Center. We illustrate this by calculating orbits for the head and tail parts of the ejecta and the nova that has produced it. We briefly discuss some of the questions that this model, if true, raises about the stellar environment close to the Galactic Center.