TY - JOUR
AU - Alexander Rodriguez
AU - Aleksey Generozov
AU - Ann-Marie Madigan
AB - The nucleus of our nearest, large galactic neighbour, M31, contains an eccentric nuclear disc – a disc of stars on eccentric, apsidally aligned orbits around a supermassive black hole (SMBH). Previous studies of eccentric nuclear discs considered only an isolated disc, and did not study their dynamics under galaxy mergers (particularly a perturbing SMBH). Here, we present the first study of how eccentric discs are affected by a galactic merger. We perform N-body simulations to study the disc under a range of different possible SMBH initial conditions. A second SMBH in the disc always disrupts it, but more distant SMBHs can shut off differential precession and stabilize the disc. This results in a more aligned disc, nearly uniform eccentricity profile, and suppression of tidal disruption events compared to the isolated disc. We also discuss implications of our work for the presence of a secondary SMBH in M31.
BT - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
DA - 2021-03
DO - 10.1093/mnras/stab552
IS - 2
N2 - The nucleus of our nearest, large galactic neighbour, M31, contains an eccentric nuclear disc – a disc of stars on eccentric, apsidally aligned orbits around a supermassive black hole (SMBH). Previous studies of eccentric nuclear discs considered only an isolated disc, and did not study their dynamics under galaxy mergers (particularly a perturbing SMBH). Here, we present the first study of how eccentric discs are affected by a galactic merger. We perform N-body simulations to study the disc under a range of different possible SMBH initial conditions. A second SMBH in the disc always disrupts it, but more distant SMBHs can shut off differential precession and stabilize the disc. This results in a more aligned disc, nearly uniform eccentricity profile, and suppression of tidal disruption events compared to the isolated disc. We also discuss implications of our work for the presence of a secondary SMBH in M31.
PY - 2021
SP - 2713
EP - 2725
T2 - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
TI - Galactic merger implications for eccentric nuclear discs: a mechanism for disc alignment
VL - 503
SN - 0035-8711
ER -