Accretion onto Stars in the Disks of Active Galactic Nuclei

Understand

Disks of gas accreting onto supermassive black holes are thought to power active galactic nuclei (AGN).

• Stars may form in gravitationally unstable regions of these disks, or may be captured from nuclear star clusters.
• Because of the dense gas environment, the evolution of such embedded stars can diverge dramatically from those in the interstellar medium.
• This work extends previous studies of stellar evolution in AGN disks by exploring a variety of ways that accretion onto stars in AGN disks may differ from Bondi accretion.