2001/11/30 by M. Y. Poon, David Merritt · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Active galactic nucleus #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Black hole (networking) #Galactic nuclei #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Intermediate-mass black hole #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Spin-flip #Supermassive black hole #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/340395
published as Astrophys.J. 568 (2002) L89 · 4 pages, 4 postscript figures, uses emulateapj.sty
openalex publication_date 2002/04/01 · arxiv created 2002/04/03 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We demonstrate that the nuclei of galaxies containing supermassive black holes can be triaxial in shape. Schwarzschild's method was first used to construct self-consistent orbital superpositions representing nuclei with axis ratios of 1 : 0.79 : 0.5 and containing a central point mass representing a black hole. Two different density laws were considered: ρ ∝ r -γ and γ = 1, 2. We constructed two solutions for each γ: one containing only regular orbits and the other containing both regular and chaotic orbits. Monte Carlo realizations of the models were then advanced in time using an N -body code to verify their stability. All four models were found to retain their triaxial shapes for many crossing times. The possibility that galactic nuclei may be triaxial complicates the interpretation of stellar kinematical data from the centers of galaxies and may alter the inferred interaction rates between stars and supermassive black holes.