Hypervelocity Stars. II. The Bound Population

, , , , and

© 2007. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. Printed in U.S.A.
, , Citation Warren R. Brown et al 2007 ApJ 660 311 DOI 10.1086/513595

0004-637X/660/1/311

Abstract

Hypervelocity stars (HVSs) are stars ejected completely out of the Milky Way by three-body interactions with the massive black hole in the Galactic center. We describe 643 new spectroscopic observations from our targeted survey for HVSs. We find a significant (3.5 σ) excess of B-type stars with large velocities +275 km s-1 < vrf < 450 km s-1 and distances d > 10 kpc that are most plausibly explained as a new class of HVSs: stars ejected from the Galactic center on bound orbits. If a Galactic center ejection origin is correct, the distribution of HVSs on the sky should be anisotropic for a survey complete to a fixed limiting apparent magnitude. The unbound HVSs in our survey have a marginally anisotropic distribution on the sky, consistent with the Galactic center ejection picture.

Export citation and abstract BibTeX RIS

Please wait… references are loading.
10.1086/513595