Constraints on the Galactic Centre environment from Gaia hypervelocity stars

Abstract

Following a dynamical encounter with Sgr A*, binaries in the Galactic Centre (GC) can be tidally separated and one member star ejected as a hyper-velocity star (HVS) with a velocity beyond the escape speed of the Milky Way. As GC-born objects located in more observationally accessible regions of the sky, HVSs offer insight into the stellar population in the inner parsecs of the Milky Way. We perform a suite of simulations ejecting stars from the GC, exploring how detectable HVS populations depend on assumptions concerning the GC stellar population, focusing on HVSs which would appear in current and/or future data releases from the \textit{Gaia} space mission with precise astrometry and measured radial velocities. We show that predictions are sensitive to two parameters in particular: the shape of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) in the GC and the ejection rate of HVSs. The absence of confident HVS candidates in \textit{Gaia} Data Release 2 excludes scenarios in which the HVS ejection rate is $\gtrsim3\times10^{-2} \, \mathrm{yr^{-1}}$. Stricter constraints will be placed on these parameters when more HVS candidates are unearthed in future \textit{Gaia} data releases -- assuming recent determinations of the GC IMF shape, one confident HVS \textit{at minimum} is expected in \textit{Gaia} DR3 and DR4 as long as the HVS ejection rate is greater than $\sim 10^{-3} \, \mathrm{yr^{-1}}$ and $\sim10^{-5} \, \mathrm{yr^{-1}}$, respectively.