Constraining the Stellar Mass Function in the Galactic Center via Mass Loss from Stellar Collisions.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Advances in Astronomy Volume 2011, Article ID 174105, 19 pages doi:10.1155/2011/174105 Research Article Constraining the Stellar Mass Function in the Galactic Center via Mass Loss from Stellar Collisions Douglas Rubin1 and Abraham Loeb2 1 Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA 2 Department of Astronomy, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA Correspondence should be addressed to Douglas Rubin, douglas.s.rubin@ Received 6 September 2011; Accepted 23 November 2011 Academic Editor: Paola Marziani Copyright © 2011 D. Rubin and A. Loeb. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The dense concentration of stars and high-velocity dispersions in the Galactic center imply that stellar collisions frequently occur. Stellar collisions could therefore result in significant mass loss rates. We calculate the amount of stellar mass lost due to indirect and direct stellar collisions and find its dependence on the present-day mass function of stars. We find that the total mass loss rate in the Galactic center due to stellar collisions is sensitive to the present-day mass function adopted. We use the observed diffuse X-ray −5 luminosity in the Galactic center to preclude any present-day mass functions that result in mass loss rates 10 M yr−1 in the vici-