Paper discussed this week was "Star Formation Around Supermassive Black Holes," Bonnell & Rice, Science, 2008, Vol. 321, 1060. Paper can be downloaded from ![[WWW]](/modern/img/moin-www.png){kind=small}
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/321/5892/1060
Paper deals with numerical simulations of star formation in the vicinity of a supermassive black hole. Recent observations of the center of the Milky Way reveal the presence of several massive stars, and it appears as if the mass function of stars at the galactic center is much more "top-heavy" than in the rest of the galaxy. This presents a problem, because it is not known how massive stars could form so close to a black hole like Sgr A*. Tidal forces from the black hole should rip apart any molecular cloud located close by. Massive stars that form far the black hole likely would not live long enough to migrate in and settle into orbits. One possible solution that this paper explores is the idea that an infalling molecular cloud could fragment and produce massive stars due to the high Jeans masses of the fragments that would come out of the cloud. This method also has the benefit that it reproduces observed eccentricities of stellar orbits near Sgr A*.
Presentation done by Brian Williams can be downloaded below.
Figures on adaptive optics in presentation taken from UCLA Galactic Center Group. Visit their website for more information and other interesting videos and graphics. http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~ghezgroup/gc/index.shtml