Effect of angular momentum distribution on gravitational loss-cone instability in stellar clusters around massive BH

Abstract

Small perturbations in spherical and thin disk stellar clusters surrounding massive a black hole are studied. Due to the black hole, stars with sufficiently low angular momentum escape from the system through the loss cone. We show that stability properties of spherical clusters crucially depend on whether the distribution of stars is monotonic or non-monotonic in angular momentum. It turns out that only non-monotonic distributions can be unstable. At the same time the instability in disk clusters is possible for both types of distributions.