Tidally-Controlled Fragmentation around Black Holes, Massive Clumps, Protostars, and the Galactic Center

Fuente: arXiv
Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Li, Guang-Xing
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
Materias:
Acceso en línea:
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
_version_ 1866912601147965440
author Li, Guang-Xing
author_facet Li, Guang-Xing
contents Gravity plays important roles at multiple scales in the universe. An important, yet often neglected, role of gravity is its ability in driving anisotropic fragmentation through tides. When tides dominate, fragmentation becomes anisotropic, and the Jeans length along the short axis, $l_{\rm tidal, Jeans}$, is approximately $σ_{\rm v}/\sqrt{G ρ_{\rm mean}}$, determined by the external tides through the mean density $ρ_{\rm mean}$. We compare predictions of $l_{\rm tidal, Jeans}$ against observational results in massive star-forming clumps, the Circumnuclear Disk (CND) around the supermassive black hole Sgr A* at the center of the Galaxy, the Central Molecular Zone in the Galactic Center, a hub-filament system, and a streamer around a young star. We find that the observed widths of these filamentary structures match theoretical predictions from tidally-controlled Jeans fragmentation. The formation of filaments can potentially shield cold gas against radiation pressure and photoevaporation, as well as hydrodynamical interaction with the ambient medium, potentially enabling the cold gas to survive. Thus, tidal forces are major players regulating gas transport around massive objects.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_18495
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Tidally-Controlled Fragmentation around Black Holes, Massive Clumps, Protostars, and the Galactic Center
Li, Guang-Xing
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Gravity plays important roles at multiple scales in the universe. An important, yet often neglected, role of gravity is its ability in driving anisotropic fragmentation through tides. When tides dominate, fragmentation becomes anisotropic, and the Jeans length along the short axis, $l_{\rm tidal, Jeans}$, is approximately $σ_{\rm v}/\sqrt{G ρ_{\rm mean}}$, determined by the external tides through the mean density $ρ_{\rm mean}$. We compare predictions of $l_{\rm tidal, Jeans}$ against observational results in massive star-forming clumps, the Circumnuclear Disk (CND) around the supermassive black hole Sgr A* at the center of the Galaxy, the Central Molecular Zone in the Galactic Center, a hub-filament system, and a streamer around a young star. We find that the observed widths of these filamentary structures match theoretical predictions from tidally-controlled Jeans fragmentation. The formation of filaments can potentially shield cold gas against radiation pressure and photoevaporation, as well as hydrodynamical interaction with the ambient medium, potentially enabling the cold gas to survive. Thus, tidal forces are major players regulating gas transport around massive objects.
title Tidally-Controlled Fragmentation around Black Holes, Massive Clumps, Protostars, and the Galactic Center
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.18495