Hypervelocity stars are far-flung

IF 12.9 1区物理与天体物理 Q1 ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS

Nature Astronomy Pub Date : 2025-04-11 DOI:10.1038/s41550-025-02542-6

Paul Woods

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Stars travelling faster than the escape speed of a galaxy — so-called hypervelocity stars — reach their velocities following an external force majeure event, such as a supernova explosion or a passage close to a black hole. Twenty-one main-sequence B-stars in the Galactic halo were identified as being unbound in the hypervelocity star (HVS) survey, and recent analysis from Jiwon Jesse Han and colleagues has identified the likely origin of nearly half of the sample as the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), prompting the question of whether a supermassive black hole (SMBH) could be present there.

Han and colleagues compiled Gaia data release 3 proper motions for all 21 stars, and adopted a Milky Way–Large Magellanic Cloud potential model to calculate possible historical orbits, accounting for uncertainties in radial velocity, distance and proper motion. Following this inverse model for 400 Myr, nine stars were found to be consistent with an LMC origin, seven with a Milky Way Galactic Centre origin, and 5 were ambiguous. All LMC-origin stars are clustered around the Leo constellation on the sky.

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超高速恒星遥不可及

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来源期刊

Nature Astronomy Physics and Astronomy-Astronomy and Astrophysics

CiteScore

19.50

自引率

2.80%

发文量

252

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