Rotation and stability of the circumnuclear gas disk in the Galactic Center potential by the ALMA CMZ Exploration Survey (ACES)

Abstract We investigated the gravitational potential and mass distribution in the Galactic Center by examining the morphology and kinematics of the circumnuclear gaseous disk revealed by the molecular line data from the ALMA CMZ Exploration Survey. We obtain an estimate of the shape of the potential within the central ${\sim}20$ pc to reproduce the observed properties of the circumnuclear gas disk by simulating the motion of test particles for various axial ratios and show that the potential is approximately spherical. We construct a rotation curve by applying the terminal velocity method to the position–velocity diagrams, and calculate the mass distribution in the Galactic Center. The distribution of mass density is found to be of cusp type, approximated by $\rho _{\rm dyn}\sim 1.56\times 10^5(R/1\, \mbox{pc})^{-1.9}~M_{\odot }\, \mbox{pc}^{-3}$, where R is the distance from the nucleus. We discuss the tidal effect caused by the gravitational potential that produces the rotation curve and show that the gas disk is stable against self-gravitational contraction within a critical radius of $R_{\rm T}\sim 14 ~(\rho _{\rm gas}/10^5 {\rm H_2\, {\mbox{cm}}^{-3}})^{-1/2}\, \mbox{pc}$. This suggests suppression of star formation and a top-heavy initial mass function in the circumnuclear region.