On the Origin of Density Cusps in Elliptical Galaxies

Abstract

We investigated the dynamical reaction of the central region of galaxies to a falling massive black hole by N-body simulations. As the initial galaxy model, we used an isothermal King model and placed a massive black hole at around the half-mass radius of the galaxy. We found that the central core of the galaxy is destroyed by the heating due to the black hole and that a very weak density cusp ($ρ\propto r^{-α}$, with $α\sim 0.5$) is formed around the black hole. This result is consistent with recent observations of large elliptical galaxies with Hubble Space Telescope. The velocity of the stars becomes tangentially anisotropic in the inner region, while in the outer region the stars have radially anisotropic velocity dispersion. The radius of the weak cusp region is larger for larger black hole mass. Our result naturally explains the formation of the weak cusp found in the previous simulations of galaxy merging, and implies that the weak cusp observed in large elliptical galaxies may be formed by the heating process by sinking black holes during merging events.