Origin of the galactic center S-stars: Gravitational torques from lin-shu-type spiral density waves

The supermassive ∼4 × 10⁶ M _⊙ black hole at the Galactic center is surrounded by a parsec-scale star disk, with several thousands of dynamically relaxed, evolved, late-type CO absorption line stars and a small 100 population of luminous O and Wolf-Rayet stars which move in approximately circular Keplerian orbits. These bluish in color massive O and Wolf-Rayet stars are very young with an estimated age of 6 ± 2 Myr. Another small group of roughly 20 young (<10 Myr) blue B stars with the orbital periods as short as 15 years ("S-stars") follow eccentric, randomly oriented orbits well inside the disk stars. A model is proposed to explain the S-stars. Accordingly, the stars formed originally in the parsec-scale disk through Jeans' gravitational fragmentation of gas. The newly formed S-stars then migrated inward to the Galactic center via the torques exerted by Lin-Shu-type spiral density waves on the stars at an inner Lindblad resonance. The model explains both the number of observed S-stars orbiting the Galactic black hole within the nuclear (<0.05 pc) star cluster and the key property of the S-star orbits, namely, their high eccentricities.