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The Beginning of an END

Presentation #200.04 in the session “Dynamics Leading to Gravitational Waves”.

Published onJun 01, 2021
The Beginning of an END

Eccentric nuclear disks (ENDs) are systems that exhibit an alignment of orbits such that their periapses are pointed in the same direction. ENDs are seen in a variety of astronomical contexts including planetary rings, such as the epsilon-ring of Uranus, or galactic nuclei, such as the nuclear stellar cluster of Andromeda. While we are beginning to understand the dynamical structure and evolution of ENDs (e.g. Madigan et al. 2018), their formation mechanism is yet unknown. In the context of galactic nuclei, here we demonstrate that the gravitational wave recoil kick of the central supermassive black hole can induce an END in its surrounding nuclear stellar cluster. We further discuss the criteria for the recoil kick magnitude and direction to produce a stable END.

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