# The connection between missing stellar cusps in galactic nuclei and general relativity

One of the most interesting sources of gravitational waves is the inspiral of compact objects on to a massive black hole (MBH), commonly referred to as an extreme-mass ratio inspiral. The small object, typically a stellar black hole, emits significant amounts of GW along each orbit in the detector bandwidth. On the other hand, recent observations of the Galactic center revealed a dearth of giant stars inside the inner parsec relative to the numbers theoretically expected for a fully relaxed stellar cusp. The possibility of unrelaxed nuclei (or, equivalently, with no or only a very shallow cusp) adds substantial uncertainty to the estimates. I show that under quite generic initial conditions, the time required for the growth of a relaxed, mass segregated stellar cusp is shorter than a Hubble time for MBHs with masses <~ 5 x 10^6 Msun.

Date:
28/04/2011 - 14:00
Speaker:
Pau Amaro Seoane
Filiation:
Albert-Einstein-Institute (MPG), Potsdam, Germany