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# X-ray flares from Sgr A∗: star-disk interactions?

## 1 Introduction

### 1.1 Sgr A : underfed X-ray flaring black hole

With the current high quality data (e.g., Schödel et al. 2002, Genzel et al. 2003; Ghez et al. 2003a,b) it seems very safe to say that the center of our Galaxy hosts a supermassive black hole, with $`M_{BH}3\times 10^6M_{}`$. The black hole is associated with Sgr A source, the compact radio core Reid et al. (1999), discovered by Balick & Brown (1974). Thanks to Chandra observations (Baganoff et al 2003a), we know that there is enough of hot gas at distances of the order $`10^{17}`$ cm (or $``$ 1″) to make the black hole glow at around $``$ few $`\times 10^{40}`$ erg/sec if accretion proceeds via the standard radiatively efficient disk (Shakura & Sunyaev 1973). However the observed bolometric luminosity of Sgr A is 4 orders of magnitude smaller than expected (e.g. Zhao, Bower & Goss 2001; see also review by Melia & Falcke 2001). The luminosity in X-rays is even smaller and is $`10^7`$ of the nominally expected numbers (Baganoff et al. 2003a). Understanding of this discrepancy is the key to accretion physics at low accretion rates which encompasses a very large scope of objects from galactic centers to stellar mass compact objects (e.g., Narayan 2002).

The currently leading explanation of the low luminosity from Sgr A is the Non-Radiative Accretion Flows (NRAFs), which were discussed in great detail first by Narayan & Yi (1994). The corner stone assumption of this model – that ions are much hotter than the electrons in the inner region of the flow – has not yet been independently verified. Initially it was believed that these flows carry (“advect”) most of their energy into the black hole, radiating very little on the way. Several years ago it became clear that these hot flows also drive powerful thermal winds (Blandford & Begelman 1999), so the accretion rate onto the black hole is significantly reduced. This theoretical picture seems to be confirmed in its gross features by the observations (e.g., Narayan, Yi & Mahadevan 1995; Bower et al. 2003; Quataert 2003), although alternative interpretations of Sgr A also exist (Melia 1994; Falcke & Markoff 2000; Coker & Melia 2000; Yuan, Markoff & Falcke 2002).

The recently discovered X-ray flares in Sgr A (Baganoff et al. 2001) brought further theoretical challenges. The X-ray flares happen at a rate of about one per day (Goldwurm et al. 2003a; Baganoff et al. 2003b). The X-ray luminosity during the flares exceeds the quiescent one by up to a factor of $`100`$ (although most of flares are weaker than that). Flare durations range from $`1`$ to 10 kiloseconds. The X-ray spectrum of flares is harder than the quiescent one. The follow-up multi-wavelength campaign of Sgr A has not detected significant variability in any other band except for X-rays (Baganoff et al. 2003b; see also Hornstein et al. 2002). This latter fact is particularly troubling since in all the current models the X-ray flares occur at the inner part of the flow that emits Sgr A radio emission. Thus the challenge is to understand why such a large variation in X-rays does not lead to flares in other frequencies.

### 1.2 Cold disks in LLAGN and Sgr A (?)

It is believed that accretion flow physics at low accretion rates should be largely self-similar (e.g. Narayan 2002) and the difference is just in scales (e.g $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}`$ and accretion rate $`\dot{M}`$). Therefore Sgr A is expected to be physically similar to the Low Luminosity AGN (LLAGN; e.g. Ho 1999). Most of LLAGN appear to posses thin cold disks. The presence of these disks is deduced convincingly through (i) water maser emission (Miyoshi et al. 1995); (ii) infrared “bumps” in the spectral energy distribution of LLAGN (Ho 1999) that are thought (Quataert et al. 1999) to be the thermal disk emission (with disk temperatures $`T\stackrel{<}{}10^3`$ K); and (iii) the prevalence of the double-peaked broad emission lines (e.g. Ho 2003). The outer radii of these disks are poorly constrained, whereas the inner disk radii can be constrained from both the SED and the emission line profiles, and seem to be in the range $`1001000R_g`$, where $`R_g`$ is the gravitational radius.

It is thus tempting to suggest that such a disk may also exist in our GC (see §2.1). There appears to be several promising ways to test the disk hypothesis. The simplest of all is through eclipses of close stars (Nayakshin & Sunyaev 2003). In particular, the orbit of star named S2 is very well determined (Schödel et al. 2002, Ghez et al. 2003b). Another important effect is the reprocessing of the optical-UV radiation of the star in the disk into the near infrared (NIR) band, which can yield a strong increase in the perceived NIR flux of the star. The current S2 data alone practically rule out an optically thick disk (Cuadra, Nayakshin & Sunyaev 2003). However a disk optically thin in NIR is permitted.

### 1.3 X-ray flares in Sgr A : star disk interactions?

In this paper we point out an additional effect as a test of the inactive disk hypothesis. Recent results of Genzel et al. (2003) show that there are as many as $`10^4`$ stars in the inner arcsecond ($`10^5R_g`$) of Sgr A . Several of these stars cross the inactive disk every day. While inside the disk, the stars drive a very strong and hot shock wave in the disk material. The shock will emit X-rays (since the shock is short lived, this emission is actually a flare). In this paper we shall build a simple yet somewhat detailed and self-contained model for these events.

Let us point out that such star-disk flares have a potential to naturally explain why there are no counterparts of X-ray flares in the radio and near infrared frequencies. A somewhat unexpected feature of this model is that the flares are the result of a process that has nothing to do with the hot gas that is responsible for Sgr A quiescent emission in all frequencies. This is so because stars are “small” ($`10^{11}`$ cm) compared with the size of the hot flow ($`10^{17}`$ cm), and they have a negligible direct effect on the flow of hot gas. Flares are emitted when the stars strike the cold disk that is much denser than the hot flow. This happens at radii of order $`10^310^5R_g`$, and thus the flares do not interfere with the flow at $`R\stackrel{<}{}10_g`$ where the jet originates. In addition, the X-ray flares are emitted by a thermal moderately hot gas, and we will later see that the radio and near infrared flares from the star-disk passages are weak.

Finally, the problem of X-ray flares from star-disk passages merits a careful study even if there is no disk in our own Galaxy. Similar X-ray flares may be detectable in other LLAGN, especially the close ones such as M31 or M32 (Ho, Terashima & Ulvestad 2003).

The plan of the paper is as following. We first attempt to determine in §2 the kind of a disk that may reside in Sgr A from arguments that are independent from the observed X-ray flares. We find that the disk must be inactive, i.e. not accreting, with temperature $`\stackrel{<}{}`$ few $`\times 10^2`$ K, with gas density in the range of $`10^{10}`$ to $`10^{15}`$ cm-3. In §2.2 we will see that a disk optically thick in near infrared is ruled out but an optically thin disk is allowed. In §3 we calculate the rate or the star-disk passages, and also show that the disk is very likely to have an inner hole. In §4 we show schematics of a star-disk passage and mention the connection of our work to the existing literature on such events. X-ray luminosity and duration of flares is calculated in §5. X-ray spectra are considered in §6, whereas the near infrared spectra are addressed in §7. In §8 properties of flares produced by a low mass star and a high mass star are discussed, and in §9 a comparison between the model and observations is made. A list of shortcomings of our work is given in §refsec:short. Finally, discussion of the results is presented in §11.

## 2 Constraints on the disk properties

### 2.1 Arguments for and against a disk in Sgr A

If the putative accretion disk were of the standard type (Shakura & Sunyaev 1973), then it would have been seen by now even if accretion rate is as small as $`10^9M_{}`$/year (Narayan 2002). But at very low disk accretion rates hydrogen in the disk becomes neutral and the accretion rate plunges to very low values (e.g. see review by Cannizzo 1998; see also equation 13 below). This is why these disks are inactive, i.e. not accreting. In addition, these disks seem to miss their inner regions for a variety of reasons (e.g., Quataert et al. 1999 and §3.2) and therefore they can escape the near infra-red (NIR) detection limits that rule out standard steady-state disks.

However, Falcke & Melia (1997; FM97 hereafter) probed the existence of the disk through its interaction with the winds from hot stars. This wind is believed to be the source of the hot gas that should be accreting onto the black hole. FM97 assumed that the wind runs into and settles down onto the disk, releasing the mechanical energy into the black-body radiation on impact. They found that unless the wind has a large specific angular momentum (so that it cannot penetrate to small radii), the luminosity expected in the NIR violates the available limits on Sgr A NIR emission. Since there are $`\stackrel{>}{}10`$ wind sources, no large angular momentum in the wind was expected. FM97 therefore stated that existence of the disk in Sgr A is highly unlikely (see also Coker, Melia & Falcke 1999).

New data show that eleven out of twelve wind-producing stars rotate in the same (counter-Galaxy) direction (Genzel 2000). These and other hot luminous stars in the region share the same puzzling property: they are quite young (Ghez et al. 2003b; Genzel et al. 2003) and it is unclear how these stars made it to the innermost arcsecond of the Galaxy. One of the possibilities is that these stars were created from a single large molecular cloud that fell into the inner region of the Galaxy with a small impact parameter. This cloud could have created both the stars and an accretion disk whose (tiny not accreted) remnant may still be there.111We have recently learned that, using data of R. Genzel’s group, Levin & Beloborodov 2003 found that 10 out of 13 wind-producing stars may lie “exactly” in a single plane, which further confirms our suggestions. Note also that matter in the accretion disk flows inward and outward from the characteristic (circularization) radius (Kolykhalov & Sunyaev 1980). It is thus not possible to accrete all of the disk in the active phase without leaving a remnant.

Nayakshin (2003) recently showed that, in the setting similar to FM97, the hot flow rapidly looses its heat to the inactive disk. The latter re-radiates this energy in the infrared. As the hot gas looses heat, it also looses vertical pressure support, and as a result condenses onto the inactive disk. The accretion flow in the radial direction is essentially terminated. Thus the hot gas is accreting not on the black hole but rather on the inactive disk. The tightest of the existing NIR limits is not violated by the model if wind circularization radius is $`R_c\stackrel{>}{}3\times 10^4R_g`$. Since the wind sources are a few arcsecond ($`=\text{few}\times 10^5R_g`$) away from Sgr A (e.g. Genzel et al. 2003), it appears that this “large” value of the circularization radius is quite reasonable. The luminosity emitted by Sgr A is very small in this model because the gravitational potential at the condensation point is tiny compared with that of the last stable orbit around the black hole. We refer to this model as the “Frozen Accretion” (FA) model of Sgr A, and use some of the constraints from the model to limit the possible size and density in the disk.

### 2.2 Disk temperature (and NIR optical depth)

First consider a disk optically thick in all frequencies. Let $`R_d`$ be the outermost radius of the disk. Since the disk is inactive, the effective temperature of such a disk does not behave as the usual $`T_\mathrm{d}R^{3/4}`$. For example, $`T_\mathrm{d}`$ appears to stay nearly independent of radius for quiescent disks of eclipsing dwarf novae (e.g. Figs. 5 & 6 in Bobinger et al. 1997). If $`T_\mathrm{d}`$ const, then the disk total energy output is dominated by the emission from outermost radii. Accordingly the disk luminosity is $`L_d2\pi R_d^2\sigma _BT_\mathrm{d}^4`$. In order to satisfy observational constraints on the total luminosity of Sgr A in quiescence, $`L_\mathrm{q}`$, this temperature must be smaller than

$$T_\mathrm{d}<\left[\frac{L_\mathrm{q}}{2\pi R_d^2\mathrm{cos}i\sigma _B}\right]^{1/4}=77\mathrm{K}\frac{L_{36}^{1/4}}{\mathrm{cos}i^{1/4}r_4^{1/2}},$$
(1)
where $`L_{36}=L_\mathrm{q}/10^{36}`$ erg/sec, $`r_4=R_d/10^4R_g`$, $`R_g=2GM/c^2=9\times 10^{11}`$ cm is the gravitational radius for the black hole mass of $`M_{BH}=3\times 10^6M_{}`$. We shall see below that the disk is unlikely to be very optically thick so the disk midplane temperature should not exceed the effective temperature by a large number.

We should also require the disk to be hot enough to re-radiate the visible and UV radiation of the Sgr A star cluster itself. We use the latest results on the star number counts in Sgr A cluster from Genzel et al. 2003, together with the fact that the total luminosity of stars in the central parsec of the Galaxy is about 50 million Solar luminosities ($`L_{}`$). We first calculate the light to mass ratio, and then use equation 16 to find that the integrated light of the star cluster within radius $`R`$ is

$$L_{}(R)=2.1\times 10^4L_{}r_4^{3/2}\text{erg/sec}$$
(2)
The flux incident on the disk is then $`F_{}(R)=L_{}/4\pi R^2`$, and the resulting effective temperature due to stellar radiation heating is

$$T_{}=190\text{K}r_4^{1/8},$$
(3)
which is a factor of 3 higher than the value in equation 1. This latest result shows that an optically thick disk in fact would over-produce the infrared luminosity of Sgr A by about a factor of a hundred (e.g. see Sgr A spectrum in Falcke & Melia 2001 and in Narayan 2002). Therefore the disk must be optically thin in the infrared frequencies or highly inclined with respect to our line of sight. An estimate shows that for not too small disk inclination angles the infrared optical depth of the disk should be no larger than about 0.01 at frequency $`10^{13}`$ Hz. In addition, close passages of very bright stars such as S2 ($`L10^5L_{}`$; Ghez et al. 2003b) may actually increase the value of $`T_{}`$ to about 300 K (Cuadra et al. 2003).

### 2.3 Disk size

The quiescent spectrum of Sgr A is in rough accord with the data if the main part of the hot flow condenses onto the cold disk at radius $`R_c\stackrel{>}{}3\times 10^4R_g`$ (Nayakshin 2003). If condensation occurs at much smaller radii, then the flow gains too much gravitational energy (while falling from the Bondi radius, $`R_\mathrm{B}10^5R_g`$ to $`R_c`$) and the luminosity of the disk would be too high. The value of $`R_c`$ could be however reduced if the exact accretion rate in the condensing flow is lower than the Bondi estimate (similar to the ADAF case; see §5.2 in Narayan 2002). Therefore we estimate the minimum disk outer radius as

$$R_d110\times 10^4R_g$$
(4)
There are no strong constraints based on the FA model on the inner disk radius, $`R_i`$, as long as it is at least a factor of few smaller than condensation radius $`R_c`$.

### 2.4 Constraints from close bright star passages

The second string of constraints on the disk size and inclination angle, $`i`$, comes from the fact that close stars could be eclipsed by the disk if it is optically thick in near infrared. Here we summarize our preliminary results (Cuadra et al. 2003; see also Nayakshin & Sunyaev 2003) based on the measured S2 star’s positions. The parameters of the orbit are now very well known (Schödel et al. 2002; Ghez et al. 2003b). Cuadra et al. (2003) find that if the disk is optically thick and has an inner hole less than $`0.01\mathrm{}10^3R_g`$, then the outer disk radius may not much exceed $`10^4R_g`$, barely making the constraints based on the FA model. In addition, for an inner hole of $`0.03`$ arcsecond, there is a large range in the disk orientation parameter space that no eclipses of S2 are predicted for any arbitrarily large value of the outer disk radius.

However reprocessing of the optical-UV radiation received by the disk from the star into the NIR band could significantly increase the apparent star brightness if the star is close enough to the disk. Using the deduced S2 orbit, we studied this effect for all possible disk orientations, assuming an optically thick disk with no inner hole and infinitely large outer radius. We find (Cuadra et al. 2003) that an increase in the 2.2$`\mu `$m flux of S2 should have been detected at least in one of the S2 measured positions, whereas observations do not confirm that. Therefore the disk, if any, must be optically thin in the NIR. We are currently modeling similar reprocessing for an optically thin disk. Unfortunately these constraints are not easily converted into constraints on the total column depth of the disk, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ (see §2.8), because the properties of the dust grains in the disk are very uncertain (see §7).

We have also checked some other potentially observable indicators of the disk presence. Due to star’s UV irradiation, a layer of completely ionized hydrogen forms on the top of the disk. Assuming temperature of order $`10^4`$ K for the layer, we found that its column depth is $`N_H10^{18}n_{11}r_{15}^2`$ cm-2, where $`r_{15}`$ is distance between the star and the disk in units of $`10^{15}`$ cm, and $`n_{11}`$ is the hydrogen nuclei density in units of $`10^{11}`$ cm-3. We then estimated the Brackett $`\gamma `$ ($`\lambda =2.16\mu `$m) line flux from this photo-ionized layer of gas, and compared it with that of the S2 star in the K-band. This flux is about $`10^3`$ of the star’s continuum $`\nu F_{nu}`$ at that frequency. For comparison, this is about 30 times weaker than the absorption in the Br $`\gamma `$ line from the star itself (see Fig. 1 in Ghez et al. 2003b). In addition, the emission line from the photo-ionized layer should be 5-10 times broader than the line from the star due to much faster disk rotation, making it challenging to observe.

Finally, free-free absorption in the photo-ionized layer is important for frequencies smaller than $`10^{11}r_{15}^1`$ Hz. For these frequencies, the corresponding thermal radio emission of the layer is at the level of about 1 percent of the Sgr A jet emission at the respective frequencies, rendering it negligible.

### 2.5 Minimum disk density

##### Pressure equilibrium argument.

In the frozen accretion model of Nayakshin (2003), the inactive disk and the hot accretion flow are in direct physical contact. Thus the disk midplane pressure should be at least as large as the pressure in the hot flow. Assuming the disk consists mainly of molecular hydrogen, $`P_dkn_\mathrm{d}T_\mathrm{d}/2`$, where $`n_\mathrm{d}`$ is the midplane density of hydrogen nuclei in cm-3. The density in the hot accretion flow can be estimated through $`\dot{M}4\pi R^2v_Rm_pn_{\mathrm{hot}}`$, where $`v_R\alpha \sqrt{GM_{\mathrm{BH}}/R}`$ and $`\alpha =0.1\alpha _1`$ is the viscosity parameter (Shakura & Sunyaev 1973). This yields

$$n_\mathrm{d}\stackrel{>}{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1.5}\times 10^9\text{cm}^3\frac{\dot{M}^{}T^{}}{\alpha _1T_2}\left(\frac{3\times 10^4R_g}{R_c}\right)^{3/2},$$
(5)
where $`\dot{M}^{}\dot{M}/3\times 10^6M_{}`$ year-1 is the accretion rate in the hot flow, $`T^{}=T_{\mathrm{hot}}/3\times 10^7`$ K is dimensionless temperature of the hot flow, $`R_c`$ is the wind circularization radius, and $`T_2=T_\mathrm{d}/100`$ K is the disk unperturbed midplane temperature.

##### Total accreted mass argument.

If condensation of the hot flow has been going on for a time $`t_a`$, then the mass accreted by the disk from the wind is $`\mathrm{\Delta }M\dot{M}t_a`$. If the accreted mass is deposited over area $`\pi R_c^2`$, then the accreted surface density is

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }_d3\text{g/cm}^2\dot{M}^{}t_{a6}\left(\frac{3\times 10^4R_g}{R_c}\right)^2,$$
(6)
where $`t_{a6}=t_a/10^6`$ years. This translates into the disk density increase of

$$\mathrm{\Delta }n_\mathrm{d}4\times 10^{10}\text{cm}^3\dot{M}^{}t_{a6}T_2^{1/2}\left(\frac{3\times 10^4R_g}{R_c}\right)^{7/2}.$$
(7)
This estimate yields a larger value for the minimum disk density than does equation (5), so we conclude that the minimum disk density is in the range of $`\text{few}\times 10^{10}`$ hydrogen nuclei in cm3. Note however that the above arguments are applicable to the disk radii with $`RR_c`$, and unfortunately they cannot be robustly extended to radii much smaller than that.

### 2.6 Disk thickness

The disk half thickness, $`H`$, is given by the hydrostatic balance (we neglect self-gravity; see below):

$$H=\sqrt{\frac{kTR^3}{GMm_p}}=3.9\times 10^{12}T_2^{1/2}r_4^{3/2}\mathrm{cm},$$
(8)
where we assumed that the gas is dominated by molecular hydrogen so $`\mu 2m_p`$. Note that the star’s radius ($`10^{11}`$ cm) is much smaller than the disk height scale for $`R>10^3R_g`$. The disk is very flat since $`H/R=0.96\times 10^3T_2^{1/2}r_4^{1/2}`$.

### 2.7 Mass of the disk and maximum density

The mass of the accretion disk with a constant (with radius) midplane density and temperature, is

$$M_d0.1M_{}n_{11}\left(\frac{R_d}{10^4R_g}\right)^{7/2}T_2^{1/2},$$
(9)
where $`n_{11}n_\mathrm{d}/10^{11}`$ cm-3 is the midplane density of hydrogen nuclei. $`M_d`$ is much smaller than the black hole mass so that the disk is not globally self-gravitating (i.e., in the radial direction; Shlosman & Begelman 1989) and will not gravitationally influence stellar dynamics in Sgr A. The disk is locally (vertically) self-gravitating when $`Q=M_d/(H/R)M_{BH}\stackrel{>}{}1`$ (Goldreich & Lynden-Bell 1965; Kolykhalov & Sunyaev 1980; Gammie 2001). We have

$$Q=\frac{M_d}{(H/R)M_{BH}}=5.0\times 10^5r_4^3n_{11},$$
(10)
i.e. the disk is not vertically self-gravitating as well for the nominal values of $`n_\mathrm{d}`$ and $`R_d`$ in this equation. We can turn the question around to derive the maximum disk density as the density at which the disk would become self-gravitating. In the latter case it would presumably break up into self-gravitating rings or regions and the star-disk impacts would become too rare. Hence,

$$n_\mathrm{d}\stackrel{<}{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}10}^{15}r_4^3$$
(11)
For $`r_4=3`$ equation (11) yields maximum density $``$ few $`\times 10^{13}`$ cm-3. Note that equation 11 is applicable for any radius $`r_4`$ in contrast to equations 5 and 7.

### 2.8 Column depth and accretion rate

The disk surface density is $`\mathrm{\Sigma }2Hn_dm_p`$, and is equal to

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }=1.3n_{11}r_4^{3/2}T_2^{1/2}\mathrm{g}\mathrm{cm}^2.$$
(12)
It is therefore clear that with the minimum and maximum disk density values just found, the disk can be either optically thin or optically thick to X-rays, and we should explore both cases.

We can also calculate the accretion rate through the disk as $`\dot{M}_d2\pi R\mathrm{\Sigma }\alpha c_s(H/R)^2`$, which yields

$$\dot{M}_d10^{10}\frac{M_{}}{\text{year}}\alpha n_{11}r_4^{7/2}T_2^2.$$
(13)
Note that (i) this accretion rate is extremely small; (ii) it is not a constant with radius since the disk is not a steady state one and of course in a real disk density $`n_{11}`$ will vary with radius. Nevertheless this equation clearly shows that even if viscosity parameter $`\alpha `$ is reasonably large, i.e. $`\alpha 0.1`$, the disk is extremely dim.

### 2.9 Summary of disk properties

Using quiescent Sgr A spectral constraints, we found that the disk temperature should be $`T_\mathrm{d}100`$ K. The disk density should be small enough to preclude it from being self-gravitating and large enough to accommodate the mass deposition from the hot flow settling onto the disk. The respective maximum and minimum values of the disk density are (according to equations 7 & 11) are $`\text{few}\times 10^{13}`$ and $`\text{few}\times 10^{10}`$ cm-3 at radius $`R=3\times 10^4R_g`$. If wind circularization radius is $`R_c=10^4R_g`$ then these values increase to $`10^{15}`$ and $`2\times 10^{12}`$ cm-3, respectively. With this range in disk density and also possibly large dynamical range between the inner and outer radii the disk can be either optically thin or thick in both X-rays and NIR. If the disk is optically thick in NIR, then most likely there must be a relatively large inner hole ($`R_i\stackrel{>}{}3\times 10^3R_g`$) in the disk or else the disk would have eclipsed (Cuadra et al. 2003; Nayakshin & Sunyaev 2003) the S2 star (Schödel et al. 2002; Ghez et al. 2003b). However most likely the disk is optically thin in the infrared frequencies (see §2.2).

## 3 The role of the star cluster

### 3.1 The rate of star-disk crossings

The distribution of stars in the central sub-parsec region of the Galaxy has been a subject of intense research for many years (see review by Genzel 2000). Existence of a stellar cusp with density distribution $`\rho _{}(R)R^{1.75}`$ has been predicted by Bahcall & Wolf (1976). Alexander (1999) found that a power-law stellar density distribution with exponent $`p`$ between 1.5 to 1.75 is statistically slightly favored over a constant density one. With unprecedentedly high statistic, Genzel et al. (2003) determined the stellar density distribution to follow the law

$$\rho _{}(R)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\rho _0(R/R_b)^p,R<R_b\hfill & \\ \rho _0(R/R_b)^2,R_b<R\hfill & \end{array},$$
(14)
where $`R_b=10`$ arcsecond, $`p=1.4\pm 0.1`$ and $`\rho _0=1.2\times 10^6`$ $`M_{}`$/pc3. Note that $`\rho _0=69`$ $`M_{}`$/arcsec3. This power-law distribution may persist down to the tidal disruption radius, $`R_t`$, which is, according to Frank & Rees (1976),

$$R_t2.0\times 10^{13}\mathrm{cm}m_{}^{1/3}r_{},$$
(15)
where $`m_{}`$ is the mass of the star in Solar masses.

For convenience we choose $`p=3/2`$ as the resulting integrals are the simplest and the resulting accuracy is adequate for this paper. The mass of the stars within a given radius $`R`$ is

$$M(R)600\left(R_bR\right)^{3/2},$$
(16)
where both $`R_b`$ and $`R`$ are in units of arcseconds. For example, at $`R=0.1`$, 1 and 10 arcsecond, we have $`600`$, $`2\times 10^4`$ and $`6\times 10^5M_{}`$, respectively.

Number of star-disk crossings per unit time and unit area is $`n_{}(R)\overline{v}_{}(R)(1/\sqrt{3})n_{}(R)v_K(R)`$ where $`n_{}(R)=\rho _{}(R)/m_{}`$ and $`\overline{v}_{}(R)`$ is the average of the star’s velocity perpendicular to the disk, which we accepted to be $`1/\sqrt{3}`$ of the local Keplerian value. Note that stars with both positive and negative $`v_{}`$ should be counted since both produce a flare. Taking the integral over the disk surface area from the inner radius to the outer one, the number of star-disk crossings per unit time is

$$\dot{N}(R)=(4\pi /\sqrt{3})\sqrt{GM_{\mathrm{BH}}}n_0R_b^{3/2}\mathrm{ln}\frac{R_d}{R_i}=0.5\mathrm{ln}\frac{R_d}{R_i}m_{}^1$$
(17)
in units of day-1. If $`R_d/R_i=500`$, then this estimate yields $`3`$ star-disk crossings per day, whereas if $`R_d/R_i=10`$ then we have $`1`$ crossing per day. The estimate (17) is very close to the observed rate of the X-ray flares of about $`1`$ flare per day (Baganoff et al. 2003b).

### 3.2 Effects of the stellar cluster on the disk

Under the assumption that the disk is truly inactive, i.e. its viscosity is zero, the only mechanism for a radial mass transfer in the disk is the angular momentum loss due to the star-disk collisions. Ostriker (1983) calculated the rate of the angular momentum loss by the disk assuming an isotropic star cluster. We will use his results for the Bahcall-Wolf (1976) distribution of stars since the latter yields $`n_{}(R)R^{7/4}`$, i.e. roughly same as observed (Genzel et al. 2003). For relatively small radii that we are interested in, i.e., $`R\stackrel{<}{}10^4R_g`$, the angular momentum transfer from the star to the disk is dominated by the hydrodynamical interaction (rather than by tidal effects) and so we set $`\eta =0`$ (see equation 10 in Ostriker 1983). Ostriker (1983) defined the “drag time” $`t_d`$ as the time for the disk at radius $`R`$ to loose all of its angular momentum due to the star-disk collisions. For the Bahcall-Wolf (1976) distribution,

$$t_d=\frac{0.09}{n_{}(R)R_{}^2v_k(R)},$$
(18)
Note that $`t_dR^2`$, and therefore it is always the inner disk that can be destroyed most rapidly (accreted onto the black hole) due to the star-disk collisions.

As in §2.5, suppose that the age of the inactive disk is $`t_a=10^6t_{a6}`$ years. Then the disk regions with $`t_d(R)\stackrel{<}{}t_a`$ will be emptied out by the star cluster and thus we can define the inner disk radius $`R_i`$ through $`t_d(R_a)=t_a`$:

$$R_i=R_{}\sqrt{\frac{\dot{N}t_a}{\mathrm{0.09\hspace{0.17em}2}\pi \mathrm{ln}R_i/R_t}}=2.2\times 10^3R_gr_{}\sqrt{\dot{N}_3t_6},$$
(19)
where $`\dot{N}_3`$ is the star-disk collision rate in units of $`10^3`$ year-1, and where we set $`R_i=10^3R_g`$ in the slowly changing logarithmic factor. Note that the factor in the denominator of equation (19) is $`4`$ so that a simple interpretation of the result is that the disk area within radius $`R_i`$ approximately equals to the area of the disk covered by the star-disk collisions in $`t_a`$ years. It is also worth observing that the inner disk radius depends relatively weakly on the star-disk collision rate $`\dot{N}`$ and $`t_a`$.

Finally, the inner disk may be emptied by means other than direct stellar impacts. For example, the S2 star is as luminous as $`10^5`$ Solar luminosities (Ghez et al. 2003b), and it came to within $`2\times 10^3R_g`$ off the black hole (Schödel et al. 2002). Clearly its separation from the disk surface would be very small at the time of the closest approach and the disk is heated to temperatures as much as $`10^3`$ K. The disk may become ionized enough to actually start accreting onto the black hole (at these small radii only). Therefore we believe that our conclusion that the inactive disk is likely to miss its inner part is quite robust. In addition disks in other LLAGN do have inner holes with $`R_i100`$ to $`10^3R_g`$ (Quataert et al. 1999; Ho 2003).

### 3.3 Summary: the role of the Sgr A cluster

We have shown (§3.1) that the rate of star-disk crossings is few per day for the stellar cusp distribution given by Genzel et al. (2003) This calculated event rate is rather close to what is observed (1 flare per day). In addition, we found that the star impacts on the inner disk are so frequent for $`R\stackrel{<}{}10^3R_g`$ that the inner disk may be simply emptied out, i.e. accreted onto the black hole. The inner disk radius was estimated to be $`R_i10^3R_g`$.

## 4 Schematics of a star passage through the disk

### 4.1 Background notes

The subject of star-disk interactions in AGN has been extensively studied in the literature. There were two main themes in these studies. One was the influence of the stars on the disk evolution through the additional drag imposed by the stars on the disk (e.g. Ostriker 1983; Norman & Silk 1983; Hagio 1987; see also §3.2), heating (e.g. Perry & Williams 1993) and mass deposition due to stripping and ablation of star’s envelopes (Armitage, Zurek & Davies 1996). Not less important were the studies of the influence of the disk on the distribution of the stellar orbits in the star cluster (e.g. Norman & Silk 1983; Vilkoviskij 1983; Syer et al. 1991; Rauch 1995; Karas & Subr 2001; Vilkoviskij & Czerny 2002). Zurek, Siemiginowska, & Colgate (1994) proposed that the wake region behind the star (when the star leaves the disk) may be the putative “broad line region clouds” of AGN. Ivanov, Igumenshchev, & Novikov (1998) studied the passage of a black hole through the accretion disk. At the same time relatively little attention has been given to the emission from a single star-disk passage. The point is that this emission is usually weak on the background of the AGN and is unlikely to be seen, although the effects of many star-disk collisions may be observable (Zentsova 1983; Perry & Williams 1993).

Furthermore, in the midplane of the dense AGN-type disks, the cooling time behind the shock is very short, and the shocked gas reaches temperatures of “only” $`10^310^5`$ K. Thus no significant X-ray emission was expected. However, in the case of Sgr A the disk density is probably much lower than the typical values considered in the literature on star-disk collisions so far. In addition, even if the disk midplane density is high enough so that the disk is optically thick, density becomes quite small in the disk photosphere. If the density is low, the radiative cooling time is long, and the shocked gas is heated to temperatures as high as $`10^710^9`$ K and emits X-rays. This emission is too weak in the context of normal AGN. For Sgr A , however, the combination of the extreme dimness of its quiescent X-ray emission and its proximity to us makes the flares observable.

### 4.2 Phases of the star passage through the disk

The star’s internal density is very much larger than that of the disk and so effects of the disk on the star during one passage are minimal (see Syer et al. 1991). An alternative way to see this is to compare the mass of the cold gas swept up by the star as it travels through the disk, to the stellar mass: $`\mathrm{\Delta }M/M_{}=\mathrm{\Sigma }\pi R_{}^2/M_{}=1.4\times 10^{11}n_{11}T_2^{1/2}r_4^{3/2}r_{}^2m_{}^11`$. We thus consider the star to be a rigid solid body in this paper. We can also neglect accretion of gas onto the stellar surface because the corresponding Bondi radius is much smaller than $`R_{}`$ ($`R_\mathrm{B}=GM_{}m_p/2kT_{\mathrm{char}}(R)=4.5\times 10^9m_{}r_47\times 10^{10}r_{}`$). Tidal interactions of the star and the gas in the wake of the star are hence neglected.

The star drives a shock into the disk. The Mach number is very large, $`v_{}/c_{\mathrm{disk}}\sqrt{T_{\mathrm{char}}/T_\mathrm{d}}10^3`$, and thus the star drills a very narrow (i.e. with diameter $``$ several $`R_{}`$) hole in the disk. If the disk is optically thick, then the X-rays will be observable only when the star, or the shock front, is in the disk photosphere. Figure 1 shows the expected sequence of events, with time increasing from the bottom to the top. The star is shown as a black filled circle with an arrow indicating its velocity. The optically thick denser part of the disk is shown with a darker color, and the disk photosphere with a lighter one. For convenience we call the side of the disk impacted by the star first the “front side”, and the other side as the “back” one. With a yet lighter color we show the region of the disk heated by compression and by radiation to temperatures of order $`10^3`$, perhaps up to $`10^4`$ K. Finally, the hottest region is the one shown with a light colored circle around the star, with temperature of the order the characteristic one (eq. 24).

Since the star’s motion through the disk is highly supersonic, the disk density remains approximately constant during the whole event except for a small region within several stellar radii from the path of the star. This means that the region of the disk pre-heated by X-rays and the shock will not have enough time to expand much and form a bulge next to the exit point of the star. The disk remains approximately plane-parallel during the star’s passage through it, then. A good analogy to the situation is given by a bullet passing through a low density material (e.g. a mattress).

For the optically thick disk, the passage of the star through the disk can be divided into three stages (cf. Figure 1):

(1) The thermal burst stage – the star is inside the optically thick part of the disk. X-rays are absorbed within the disk and re-emitted as thermal radiation in the infra-red or optical. This is the regime in which the star passages were extensively studied in the literature.

(2) The X-ray flare phase – the star is in the disk photosphere. The X-rays are directly visible to the observer in this phase. In the simple semi-analytical treatment of this paper, we will not make distinction between the front-side and the back-side flares, although in reality the observed emission will depend on the 3-D geometry of the problem through i.e. obscuration of a part of the shock by the star itself.

(3) The “afterglow” phase – the star is many stellar radii away from the disk. The X-ray emitting gas cooled down to temperatures below $`10^7`$ K and is not observable anymore (due to high interstellar absorption to Sgr A). A patch of the disk around the trek of the star is still “hot” compared with the unperturbed disk, and is cooling mostly by black-body emission coming out in the infra-red (e.g. Syer et al. 1991).

If the disk is optically thin this division does not apply since there is essentially only one stage.

### 4.3 Division of the parameter space

Radiation from the shocked gas is a very important facet of the given problem since it affects both the hydrodynamics and the expected spectra. Therefore, the parameter space for the problem naturally breaks down into two important cases: optically thin and optically thick (disk). We will consider these cases separately below. In addition, there is further dependence of the results on whether the cooling time of the shocked gas is shorter, comparable or longer than the adiabatic expansion time (see below). Altogether we have six cases each of which may lead to different expected flare spectra. Some of the resulting flare characteristics, such as the duration, depends mostly on geometry rather than on anything else.

## 5 X-ray flares (luminosity)

### 5.1 Optically thin case

#### 5.1.1 Setup

Consider the case of a disk optically thin to X-rays as seen by the observer. The photon energy window through which Chandra and XMM are able to observe Sgr A is the $`E28`$ keV range. The opacity in the disk photosphere is of course a very strong function of photon energy $`E`$, and at small energies, i.e. $`E`$ few keV, photo-absorption is very significant and the opacity is much higher than at energies $`E78`$ keV. We will consider this effect in greater detail in §6.2, but for now we introduce an “effective” disk opacity, one which is a rough approximation to the opacity weighted with the optically thin (photon energy) spectrum of the shock. Since we expect bremsstrahlung-like hard spectra (see below), and since photo-ionization of the gas may be important (see §6.2), we estimate that the effective disk opacity is $`b`$ few times $`\sigma _T`$, the Thomson one.

Within this approach, the optical depth of the disk in the relevant photon energy range along the line of sight to the observer is

$$\tau \frac{b}{\mathrm{cos}i}\sigma _THn_\mathrm{d},$$
(20)
which yields the maximum midplane density for which the disk is still optically thin:

$$n_\mathrm{d}n_{\mathrm{ot}}=3.86\times 10^{11}\frac{\mathrm{cos}i}{b}T_2^{1/2}r_4^{3/2}.$$
(21)
Now let $`R_{}=r_{}R_{}`$ be the star’s radius, $`M_{}=m_{}M_{}`$ is its mass and $`v_{}`$ is the star’s velocity. We define the relative velocity of the star and the gas in the disk, $`v_{\mathrm{rel}}^2=v_K^2+v_{}^22v_{}v_K\mathrm{cos}\theta _r`$, where $`\theta _r`$ is the angle between the two velocities. In general one needs to carry out calculations for arbitrary $`v_{}`$ and $`\theta _r`$ and then integrate over the 3D stellar velocity distribution. Here we use the simplest approach and take the star velocity be perpendicular to the disk surface, i.e. $`\theta _r=\pi /2`$. Since we also assume $`v_{}=v_K=2.1\times 10^8r_4^{1/2}`$ cm/sec, we have $`v_{\mathrm{rel}}=\sqrt{2}v_K`$.

We shall emphasize that in a more detailed calculation the role of the exact values for $`\theta _r`$ and $`v_{}`$ will be instrumental in determining the flare characteristics. Moreover, the exact 3D velocity of the star will also be important. For example, if the star is moving away from the observer, then the leading edge of the bow shock is obscured from the observer by the star. This effect is not taken into account in our calculations. Thus we should keep in mind that the calculations below are meant to be representative and in reality a larger variation in the spectral and temporal characteristics of flares is expected.

#### 5.1.2 Flare duration and rise time

If the disk height scale is much smaller than the radius of the star, then duration of the burst is given by $`t_{\mathrm{dur}}2R_{}/v_{}`$:

$$t_{\mathrm{dur}}2\frac{R_{}}{v_{}}=670\mathrm{sec}r_{}r_4^{1/2},$$
(22)
In the opposite case we have $`t_{\mathrm{dur}}H/v_{}`$

$$t_{\mathrm{dur}}2\frac{H}{v_{}}=5\times 10^4T_2^{1/2}r_4^2\mathrm{sec}.$$
(23)
Note that $`H=2R_{}`$ at $`r_4=0.11r_{}^{2/3}`$, so that for radii smaller than this one equation 22 should be used while for larger radii equation 23 is the one to use. Since the maximum luminosity reached in the bursts can be significantly higher than the quiescent Sgr A emission, the rise time scale should be at least several times shorter than the burst duration. However it cannot be much shorter than a fraction of $`R_{}/v_{}`$, i.e. a hundred seconds for $`r_{}r_4^{1/2}1`$.

#### 5.1.3 Characteristic temperature and time scales

The maximum temperature to which the gas can be heated in the shock is the “characteristic” temperature defined as

$$T_{\mathrm{char}}=\frac{2}{3}\frac{\mu v_{\mathrm{rel}}^2}{2k}=1.8\times 10^8r_4^1\mathrm{K},$$
(24)
where we assumed that the mean particle mass in the shocked gas is $`\mu =m_p/2`$.

In a strong shock, the gas is compressed by the factor of $`4`$, so that the electron gas density in the shocked gas is $`n_{\mathrm{sh}}=4n_\mathrm{d}`$. For the temperatures of interest the cooling function is dominated by the bremsstrahlung radiation. Accordingly, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(T)=2.4\times 10^{27}T^{1/2}`$ erg cm3 sec-1 for a gas of cosmic abundance (we will include atomic emission processes in the calculation of spectra later). The cooling time of the shocked gas is

$$t_c=\frac{3kT}{\mathrm{\Lambda }(T)n_{\mathrm{sh}}}=5.6\times 10^3\mathrm{sec}r_4^{1/2}n_{11}^1,$$
(25)
where we put $`T=T_{\mathrm{char}}(R)`$. The radiative cooling time $`t_c`$ should be compared with the adiabatic losses time scale, $`t_{\mathrm{ad}}`$, which is the time it takes for the shocked gas to cool off via adiabatic expansion in the disk.

$$t_{\mathrm{ad}}=\frac{R_{}}{v_{}}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}330}\text{sec}r_{}r_4^{1/2}.$$
(26)
If the gas density is very high, so that $`t_ct_{\mathrm{ad}}`$, then the shocked gas will not be heated to the maximum temperature (eq. 24) because of the radiative cooling. We estimate that in this case the actual temperature of the shocked gas near the star is

$$T_{\mathrm{sh}}=T_{\mathrm{char}}\frac{t_c}{t_{\mathrm{ad}}+t_c}.$$
(27)
#### 5.1.4 X-ray luminosity

The star is essentially a piston pushing the gas ahead (and aside) of it, and hence the rate at which the star makes work on the gas in the disk is approximately

$$L_w\pi R_{}^2m_pn_\mathrm{d}v_{\mathrm{rel}}^37\times 10^{34}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{sec}^1n_{11}r_{}^2r_4^{3/2},$$
(28)
where $`n_{11}=n_\mathrm{d}/10^{11}`$ cm-3. This is a mechanical power, and only a fraction of this energy may be emitted in X-rays. Defining $`ϵ_x`$ to be the efficiency with which mechanical power is radiated away in X-rays with $`E\stackrel{>}{}1`$ keV, we write

$$L_{\mathrm{xe}}=ϵ_xL_w,$$
(29)
where the subscript “xe” stands for “X-ray emitted”. The efficiency $`ϵ_x`$ depends on the ratio of $`t_c`$ and $`t_{\mathrm{ad}}`$. Below we use rather rough estimates of $`ϵ_x`$; better values are unlikely to be obtained in an analytical way.

If $`t_ct_{\mathrm{ad}}`$, then shocked gas temperature (equation 27) is smaller than $`T_{\mathrm{char}}`$ due to strong radiative cooling. If $`T_{\mathrm{sh}}`$ is lower than $`10^7`$ K, then most of X-ray emission will be emitted at soft X-ray energies. Such emission would be absorbed in the $`10^{23}`$ hydrogen nuclei per cm2 column depth of the cold material in the line of sight to Sgr A. In other words flares with $`T_{\mathrm{sh}}\stackrel{<}{}10^7`$ K are not observable from Sgr A location. However we find that the disk midplane density that explains the observed luminosity of flares in Sgr A best is low enough that this situation ($`T_{\mathrm{sh}}\stackrel{<}{}10^7`$ K) is not reached. It is then appropriate to set $`ϵ_x1`$ in the radiatively efficient case.

In the opposite limit of a very long cooling time, the shock becomes an inefficient radiator. The X-ray luminosity of the shock front around the star itself is $`LL_wt_{\mathrm{ad}}/(t_{\mathrm{ad}}+t_c)L_wt_{\mathrm{ad}}/t_c`$. Thus in general we write

$$ϵ_x=\frac{t_{\mathrm{ad}}}{t_{\mathrm{ad}}+t_c}.$$
(30)
In particular, in the case of $`t_ct_{\mathrm{ad}}`$, we have

$$L_{\mathrm{xo}}4.1\times 10^{33}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{sec}^1n_{11}^2r_{}^3r_4^{1/2}.$$
(31)
It is important to note that equations 30 and 31 do not include contribution of the shocked gas in the wake of the star. When radiative cooling is initially unimportant, the shocked gas cools first via adiabatic losses and work against the ambient unshocked gas. As the hot gas expands, the adiabatic cooling time scale $`t_{\mathrm{ad}}`$ eventually becomes comparable to the radiative cooling time $`t_c`$, at which time most of the radiation would be emitted. If the gas temperature at that point is still larger than $`10^7`$ K, then the X-ray luminosity could be as large as $`L_w`$. Unfortunately we found no reliable analytical way to accurately calculate this effect and we leave this task to future work, remembering the fact that $`ϵ_x`$ is somewhat underestimated in the $`t_ct_{\mathrm{ad}}`$ case.

### 5.2 Optically thick disk case

We now assume that the disk optical depth to X-rays as seen by the observer is greater than unity, and hence (cf. equation 21)

$$n_\mathrm{d}>n_{\mathrm{ot}}=3.86\times 10^{11}\frac{\mathrm{cos}i}{b}T_2^{1/2}r_4^{3/2}.$$
(32)
The main difference from the optically thin case is the fact that X-rays emitted by the shock while the star is in the disk midplane are absorbed and reprocessed into thermal radiation. As explained in §4.1, this is the regime studied intensively in the previous literature. However even in this case there will be X-ray emission when the star reaches the disk photosphere. There the density is usually low enough to preclude radiative cooling from reducing shock temperature to below $`10^7`$ K. Hence the ratio of the fraction of energy emitted in X-rays to that in the optical-UV in the optically thick case is

$$\frac{𝑑tL_\mathrm{x}}{𝑑tL_{\mathrm{ouv}}}\frac{1}{\tau _d}1,$$
(33)
where $`\tau _d`$ is the optical depth of the disk to X-rays. Note also that two X-ray flares are emitted per each star-disk encounter – one at the impact side and the other at the exit side of the disk (see Fig. 1), but of course the observer will see only the flare emitted from the side of the disk facing the observer.

The flare duration is now at most $`H/v_{}`$ because the flare from only one side is seen. In addition, the duration will be reduced by a further factor of a few if the photosphere of the disk is at several hight scales above the disk (since the disk density drops very quickly there; see eq. 35).

#### 5.2.1 X-ray light curve

The emitted X-ray luminosity can be calculated exactly as in the optically thin case (§5.1.4) but we now take into account (i) attenuation of X-rays in the disk; and (ii) the fact that unshocked gas density in the disk photosphere, $`n_\mathrm{p}`$, is lower than that in the disk midplane, $`n_\mathrm{d}`$. Our treatment of the first complication is to simply introduce exponential attenuation along the line of sight. This approach underestimates the X-ray luminosity for very small $`\mathrm{cos}i`$ for which radiation scattered once in the photosphere becomes more important than the unscattered one. We defer a more careful treatment of the scattered radiation to a future paper however, to keep our calculations here as analytical and transparent as possible.

One should also keep in mind that we use the “effective” cross section for the total one (photo-absorption plus scattering), which we parameterize as $`b\sigma _T`$ (see §5.1.1). Now let $`\tau _e`$ be the effective total depth of the disk from the star’s position $`z`$ to the observer. The observed X-ray luminosity is then

$$L_{\mathrm{xo}}L_{\mathrm{xe}}\mathrm{exp}\left[\tau _e\right],$$
(34)
where $`L_{\mathrm{xe}}`$ is given by equation 29. The gas density in the photosphere is approximately given by the gaussian density profile:

$$n(z)=n_\mathrm{d}\mathrm{exp}\left[\left(\frac{z}{H}\right)^2\right].$$
(35)
The observed X-ray luminosity is now a function of time since $`z=v_zt`$ if we define $`t=0`$ as the time at which the star crosses the disk midplane. Consider a front side flare – when the star is moving into the disk (i.e., see the sketch on the very bottom of Fig. 1; the observer is below the disk, at $`z=\mathrm{}`$ in this case). When the star first impacts the disk photosphere, the X-ray luminosity rapidly increases because the star moves into denser and denser environment. During this optically thin stage $`L_{\mathrm{xo}}L_{\mathrm{xe}}ϵ_xn(z)`$ (equation 29). Later, when the surface $`\tau _e=1`$ is reached, the attenuation of X-rays by the disk matter becomes important and the luminosity dependence on the density becomes $`L_{\mathrm{xo}}ϵ_xn(z)\mathrm{exp}(\tau _e)`$. Furthermore, for the gaussian density profile

$$\tau _e(z)\frac{n(z)}{n_\mathrm{d}}\tau $$
(36)
where $`\tau `$ is the optical depth to the disk midplane (equation 20) and $`n_\mathrm{d}`$ is the disk midplane density. It then follows that

$$L_{\mathrm{xo}}(t)ϵ_xn(z)\mathrm{exp}\left[\tau \frac{n(z)}{n_\mathrm{d}}\right].$$
(37)
Thus the event is indeed a flare: the luminosity first increases and then decreases quite rapidly. Note however that we implicitly assumed here that cooling time $`t_c`$ is shorter than duration of X-ray flare, $`t_{\mathrm{dur}}`$.

### 5.3 Maximum flare X-ray luminosity

The maximum observed X-ray luminosity, $`L_{\mathrm{max}}`$, for an optically thick disk, will be approximately that corresponding to $`\tau _e=1`$. The gas density at which $`\tau _e=1`$ is simply $`n(z)=n_{\mathrm{ot}}`$ as given by equation (21). We now substitute this value for the gas density into equation 29 and multiply the result by $`\mathrm{exp}[1]`$ to get

$$L_{\mathrm{max}}=10^{35}ϵ_x(n_{\mathrm{ot}})\frac{\mathrm{cos}i}{b}T_2^{1/2}r_{}^2r_4^3,$$
(38)
where $`b`$ few is the ratio of the effective total cross section in the disk atmosphere to the Thomson cross section. Note that in the case of an optically thin disk the midplane density is lower than $`n_{\mathrm{ot}}`$ and hence the emitted X-ray luminosity is lower. Therefore equation 38 gives the maximum X-ray luminosity of a flare in both optically thin and thick cases.

We shall emphasize the fact that the maximum X-ray luminosity just derived is a strong function of the disk inclination angle $`i`$. In particular in the radiatively inefficient shock case, $`ϵ_x\mathrm{cos}i`$ and thus $`L_{\mathrm{max}}\mathrm{cos}^2i`$. This dependence shows that if X-ray flares are indeed associated with the putative inactive disk, then the inclination angle could not be too large, i.e. the disk could not be face on or else the X-ray luminosity of the flares would be too small.

## 6 X-ray spectrum

### 6.1 Optically thin spectrum

In general the X-ray spectrum of a flare is complicated. The emitting region is a multi-temperature gas and only numerical calculations are likely to yield accurate spectral predictions. However single temperature optically thin spectra will provide us with certain guidance. In addition, these spectra should be of some relevance for the optically thick disk and the case of $`t_ct_{\mathrm{ad}}`$. Under these conditions we expect $`T_{\mathrm{sh}}T_{\mathrm{char}}`$ and a major fraction of the mechanical power of the shock should be “quickly” radiated in X-rays, so that the wake of the star does not make a large contribution to the emitted spectrum.

The photo-ionization parameter for the gas in the shock is $`\xi L_x/n_{\mathrm{sh}}R^2`$ and is usually smaller than a hundred, i.e., photo-ionization is not important for the shocked gas, and the plasma is essentially in the coronal limit. The ionization equilibrium assumption is appropriate since the recombination time scale for the completely ionized Fe is $`1/(\alpha _{\mathrm{rec}}n_{\mathrm{sh}})3`$ sec $`n_{11}^1T_7^{1/2}`$. Further, the Thomson optical depth of the shocked gas is $`\tau _T\sigma _Tn_{\mathrm{sh}}R_{}=0.02r_{}n_{11}1`$, so that the emission region is optically thin. The Compton $`y`$-parameter, $`y4(kT_{\mathrm{sh}}/m_ec^2)\tau _T1`$ in most realistic cases and thus Comptonization is not important for the continuum.

We computed optically thin X-ray spectra using the code XSTAR (e.g., Kallman & Krolik 1986), assuming solar abundance of elements and that the emitting gas temperature is equal to $`T_{\mathrm{char}}(R)`$. The results for three different radii, $`r_4=0.5`$, 1 & 2.5, are plotted in Figure 2 with the dotted, thick and thin solid curves, respectively. The near infrared part of the spectra will be discussed later in §7. In Figure 2, the top panel shows the spectra in a broad frequency range and the bottom panel concentrates on the $`110`$ keV part of the spectrum.

The characteristic temperatures are $`T_{\mathrm{char}}=3.6,1.8\mathrm{and}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0.73}\times 10^8`$ K for $`r_4=0.5,1\mathrm{and}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}2.5}`$, respectively. For such high temperatures, the X-ray spectrum is mostly bremsstrahlung emission with the great exception of the Fe K$`\alpha `$ lines at $`6.7`$ and $`6.9`$ keV. The keV-part of the spectrum shows that the line is dominated by the He-like (i.e., the $`6.7`$ keV) component for the smallest $`T`$ considered, whereas the 6.9 keV component dominates for the largest value of $`T`$.

Clearly, the integrated equivalent width (EW) of Fe K$`\alpha `$ line decreases as $`T_{\mathrm{char}}`$ increases ($`R`$ decreases). Another obvious trend seen in Figure (2) is that with increase in $`T_{\mathrm{char}}`$ the thermal rollover moves to higher frequencies and the spectrum begins to look more and more power-law like in the $`28`$ keV band. To quantify these trends and to compare the observed flare spectra with those predicted by our model, we defined the photon index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ by drawing a power-law through two line-free photon energies of $`E2.2`$ keV and $`7.25`$ keV, and also integrated over all the components of the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line to get its total EW. Figure 3 displays the resulting dependence of index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and the EW of Fe K$`\alpha `$ line on the temperature of the shocked gas.

So far only two – the brightest – of the observed X-ray flares had enough statistics to conclude that spectra during flares seem to be hard power-laws in the $`2\stackrel{<}{}E\stackrel{<}{}8`$ keV energy range, with the photon spectral index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }1\pm 0.7`$ (Baganoff et al. 2001, Goldwurm et al. 2003a), and they seem to show little of an Fe K$`\alpha `$ line. Goldwurm et al. (2003b) notes that a Fe K$`\alpha `$ line-like feature at $`6.4`$ keV in their spectra is not statistically significant; but the upper limit on the EW of the line is as large as 1.8 keV. From Figures (2 & 3) it is clear that to have such hard spectra, the bright flares should have $`T_{\mathrm{sh}}\stackrel{>}{}2\times 10^8`$ K. The constraint on the EW of the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line also requires similarly high values of $`T_{\mathrm{sh}}`$.

Finally, let us recall that in the case $`t_ct_{\mathrm{ad}}`$, we expect that there will be a range of temperatures that contribute to the overall spectrum, from $`T=T_{\mathrm{char}}`$ in front of the star to much lower temperatures in the wake of the star. The main effect is to make the spectrum softer. Hence the minimum value of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }1.3`$ from Figure 3 should also be the minimum value for the spectral index in the more general case.

### 6.2 Absorption along the line of sight in the photosphere

The emitted spectrum is attenuated in the atmosphere differentially for different photon energies $`E`$ because photon opacity is a function of $`E`$. The observed spectrum could be severely cut (compared to that shown in Fig. 2) at low energies $`E\stackrel{<}{}2`$ keV because the opacity there is very large. Observations of at least the brightest flares show no enhancement in the column depth of the cold neutral absorber in the line of sight (Baganoff et al. 2001, Goldwurm et al. 2003a). For optically thick case, the only way to reconcile the model with the observations is if the photosphere around the star is strongly ionized and hence the absorption opacity is much smaller than that due to the cold material in the line of sight.

Baganoff et al. (2001) found that the column depth of the cold material during both quiescent and flare emission is $`N_{\mathrm{cold}}5\times 10^{22}`$ hydrogen nuclei per cm2. The column density through which the X-rays pass during the maximum X-ray observed emission is around $`N_{\mathrm{ion}}1/b\sigma _t5\times 10^{23}`$. We then need the absorption opacity of the ionized photosphere to satisfy

$$\frac{\sigma _{\mathrm{ion}}(E)}{\sigma _{\mathrm{cold}}(E)}\frac{N_{\mathrm{cold}}}{N_{\mathrm{ion}}}0.1,$$
(39)
where $`\sigma _{\mathrm{cold}}`$ is the absorption cross section of the cold gas which is much larger than $`\sigma _T`$, the Thomson cross section. For energy $`E`$ in equation 39 it is sensible to take $`E2`$ keV because the cold gas opacity is largest at the smallest energies in the keV band, and so the measurement of $`N_{\mathrm{cold}}`$ is really dominated by the lowest energy bin (see Figure 3 in Baganoff et al. 2001).

The ionization state of the disk atmosphere illuminated by X-rays from the shock is controlled by photo-ionization rather than by collisional ionization since the gas temperature is low, i.e. $`TT_{ir}10^310^4`$ Kelvin. Using XSTAR once again, we calculated the ionization state of plasma kept at $`T=10^4`$ K and illuminated by X-rays with spectrum similar to those shown in Figure (2). The resulting absorption cross section as a function of photon energy is plotted in Figure (4) for different values of photo-ionization parameter which is defined as $`\xi 4\pi F_x/n_0`$ where $`F_x`$ is the integrated X-ray flux. The solid curve labelled “0” is calculated for a very small $`\xi `$ and yields the “cold” absorption cross section $`\sigma _{\mathrm{cold}}(E)`$. The Figure shows that the condition specified by equation (39) is fulfilled when ionization parameter exceeds about 10.

We estimate the average ionization parameter in the photosphere around the star as

$$\xi \frac{L_{\mathrm{xe}}}{n_0(H/2)^2},$$
(40)
where $`L_{\mathrm{xe}}`$ is the emitted X-ray luminosity at the maximum light, which is given by $`L_{\mathrm{max}}\mathrm{e}^1`$ (see §5), and as representative distance from the star $`H/2`$ is chosen. For example, $`L_{\mathrm{max}}`$ for the case of an optically thick disk with adiabatic losses dominating the radiative ones is

$$\xi 0.042\frac{\mathrm{cos}i}{\sigma _e}T_2^{3/2}r_{}^3r_4^5.$$
(41)
Clearly strong enough ionization of $`\xi \stackrel{>}{}10`$ requires the two bright detected X-ray flares to happen at small values of $`r_4`$ and/or be produced by large stars with $`r_{}1`$. Taking a concrete example of a 5 Solar radii star, we find that $`\xi `$ exceeds 10 for radii $`r_4\stackrel{<}{}0.6`$. Note that the photo-ionization parameter $`\xi `$ at the time of maximum light in X-rays is a function of the disk inclination angle, so once again we see the dependence of the results on the disk orientation to us (cf. §5.2.1 and 5.1.1).

We shall emphasize that the constraint $`\xi \stackrel{>}{}10`$ is important only if the disk is somewhat optically thick. The disk may be optically thin to X-rays which we find quite likely for the innermost disk region where the bright flares should be taking place.

## 7 Flares in the near infrared

Here, as everywhere else in this paper, we concentrate on the effects of relatively low mass stars on the disk. For high mass, high luminosity stars, the main effect through which the disk is affected is the heating of the disk by the enormous optical and UV radiation output of these stars (Cuadra et al. 2003). In addition winds from such stars may increase the effective radius of the star: due to the winds a larger area of the disk may be shock heated. These stars should be expected to produce NIR and X-ray flares much stronger than those we consider in this paper. Of course such powerful flares are much less frequent than those from low mass stars, and we plan to consider in our future work.

### 7.1 Optically thick case

First consider the simplest case of a disk optically thick in the near infrared. X-rays emitted by the shock while inside the optically thick disk are easily absorbed by the cold un-shocked gas and reprocessed into thermal radiation. Therefore we assume that all the work done by the star on the cold gas is emitted as a blackbody radiation in this case and that the luminosity is equal to $`L_w`$ (equation 28). The radiation runs ahead of the shock wave, heating and ionizing the gas in the disk. The region affected by the radiation is roughly the cube with size $`2H`$. The temperature of the region can be found by assuming that the cooling time within the disk, $`t_{cd}`$, is shorter than $`H/v_{}`$. This implies that $`L_w\sigma _BT_{ir}^4\times 2(2H)^2`$ and

$$T_{ir}=1.78\times 10^3\mathrm{K}\left[\frac{n_{11}r_{}^2}{T_2}\right]^{1/4}r_4^{9/8}$$
(42)
(index $`ir`$ stands for “infra-red”). If $`t_{cd}>t_{\mathrm{pre}}`$, then the thermal luminosity is lower than $`L_w`$.

As remarked in §4, the pre-heated gas cannot expand much during the star’s passage through the disk. The observed flare luminosity in near infra-red is then reduced by the disk projection effect: $`L_{\mathrm{obs}}=L_w\mathrm{cos}i`$. The near infra-red K-band seems to yield the tightest constraints on the theoretical models (see, e.g., Hornstein et al. 2002). The corresponding reference wavelength is $`2.2\mu `$m and the frequency is $`\nu _0=1.36\times 10^{14}`$ Hz. The predicted observed luminosity is then $`\nu L_\nu =4\pi \times 4H^2\mathrm{cos}i\nu B_\nu (T_{ir})`$:

$$\nu L_\nu =7.8\times 10^{36}\mathrm{cos}iT_2r_4^3\frac{\overline{\nu }^4}{e^x1},$$
(43)
where $`\overline{\nu }\nu /\nu _0`$ and $`xh\nu /kT_{ir}`$, and where we assumed that the distance to the Galactic Center is $`D=8.0`$ kpc. Note that the factor of $`4\pi `$ above arises due to the usual assumption of the observed at Earth that the emitter (the disk) emits isotropically in the full $`4\pi `$ steradians. Also note that the dependence on the disk density is “hidden” in the temperature $`T_{ir}`$ of the emission and that $`x=\overline{\nu }(h\nu _0/kT_{ir})=\overline{\nu }(6.5\times 10^3\mathrm{K}/T_{ir})`$.

The luminosity given by equation 43 is quite large. The current best limit on the quiescent emission of Sgr A at 2.2 $`\mu `$m is about $`2`$ mJy (deredenned; Hornstein et al. 2002). In terms of $`\nu L_\nu `$, the quiescent limit of 2 mJy corresponds to about $`2\times 10^{34}`$ erg/sec. Hornstein et al. (2002) note that the limits on random 3-hour flares is about a factor of 10 higher, i.e. $`2\times 10^{35}`$ erg/sec. Hence an optically thick (in NIR) disk in Sgr A would produce NIR flares strong enough to be detected by now.

### 7.2 Optically thin disk

Previously we pointed out that no optically thick disk can exist in Sgr A already based on its quiescent spectrum – or the disk would reprocess too large a fraction of the visible and UV stellar flux into the infrared band and would violate the observed upper limits (see §2.2). These constraints limit the infrared optical depth of the disk to $`\tau _{\mathrm{ir}}\stackrel{<}{}0.01`$. If the opacity of the disk grains were grey, the grain temperature would equal to the effective one (that is $`T_{ir}`$). In this approximation the luminosity of the flare in the NIR is simply reduced by the factor $`\tau _{\mathrm{ir}}`$:

$$\nu L_\nu =7.8\times 10^{34}\frac{\tau _{\mathrm{ir}}}{0.01}\mathrm{cos}iT_2r_4^3\frac{\overline{\nu }^4}{e^x1}.$$
(44)
Figure 2, panel (a), shows examples of such spectra for a star with radius $`R=2R_{}`$. Note that the NIR flares are weak enough to be missed. Also note that the value of the dust optical depth, assumed to be equal to 0.01 for all frequencies, is likely to be smaller than that of the disk in quiescence. The stellar passage through the disk may in fact destroy the dust (see below) in which case the NIR luminosity will be reduced even further.

It is tempting at this point to make a connection between $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, the disk surface density given by equation 12, and the optical depth in the NIR using the standard interstellar dust opacity. For example, at $`2.2\mu `$m, the dust extinction is about $`5\times 10^{22}`$ cm2 per Hydrogen atom (see Fig. 2 in Voshchinnikov 2003). Thus with $`n_\mathrm{d}10^{11}`$ cm-3 the disk would be optically thick in the $`2.2\mu `$m for radii greater than about $`10^3R_g`$. However the dust opacity in the disk is likely to be reduced compared with the interstellar values but it is hard to calculate this process model-independently. One uncertain quantity is the minimum size of the dust grains which is influenced by dust growth. For example, following Spitzer (1978), we estimate that the grain radius $`a`$ grows at the rate $`da/dt10^3\zeta _an_{11}^1`$ cm/year, where $`\zeta _a\stackrel{<}{}1`$ is the average fraction of atoms that stick to the grain in the course of collisions with the grain. This rate is very large so there may be no small grains in the disk which would argue for an optically thin disk. On the other hand dust grains will be destroyed or broken up into smaller grains by dust-dust collisions.

Another uncertainty is the ratio of the mass of the matter in the grains to that in the gas. There could be no dust in the disk initially when the active phase turned off because the disk was too hot; the dust could then be created in the disk and could also be brought in by the stellar winds; it could also be destroyed because of stellar UV radiation, star passages. For an example we briefly consider the last effect mentioned above. The temperature of the gas in the cylinder with radius $`H`$ around the star’s trek in the disk is given by equation 42. This temperature is high enough to destroy all or most of the dust species. Therefore we may define time “dust destruction” time scale, $`t_{\mathrm{dd}}`$, as time needed to cover all of the disk area within radius $`R`$ by star-disk collisions (each collision “covers” area $`\pi H^2`$ of the disk). Using the rate of the star-disk passages calculated in §3.1, we obtain

$$t_{\mathrm{dd}}=\frac{\pi R^2}{\dot{N}(R)\pi H^2}2\times 10^4\text{years}T_2^1r_4^1.$$
(45)
This time is very short compared with the viscous time scales for the cold disk ($`10^710^8`$ years).

## 8 Typical “weak” and typical “strong” flares

Given the theoretical picture of a star-disk collision developed in this paper, we now consider two important cases. The first one is the passage of a “low”-mass star with $`R_{}=R_{}`$ through the disk for a range of midplane disk densities $`n_\mathrm{d}`$, and for different radii $`R`$. The second case is that of a “large” star, with $`R=5R_{}`$, passing through the same disk.

The low-mass star case is analyzed in Figure 5. The midplane disk density $`n_\mathrm{d}`$ is chosen to be $`n_\mathrm{d}=3\times 10^{10}`$, $`10^{11}`$ and $`3\times 10^{11}`$ hydrogen nuclei per cm3. The X-ray luminosities are shown with thick curves while the near infrared 2.2$`\mu `$ luminosities are plotted with thin curves in panel (a). Larger values of these luminosities correspond to larger values of the midplane density. Panel (b) of the Figure shows three time scales – the duration (eq. 23), cooling (eq. 25) and adiabatic expansion time (eq. 26). Out of these only the cooling time depends on the disk density, which was chosen to be $`n_\mathrm{d}=10^{11}`$ cm-3 for the respective curve in panel (b). We do not show disk radii smaller than $`10^3R_g`$ because it is rather unlikely that the disk will extend there (see §3.2).

The X-ray luminosity curves have a common asymptotic at large radii, which is simply the optically thick case given by equation (38). It is very important to note that in this optically thick limit the X-ray luminosity is an extremely strong function of radius: $`L_{\mathrm{xo}}R^3`$. Given the fact that quiescent X-ray luminosity of Sgr A is about $`L_q10^{33}`$ erg/sec, it is clear that flares from solar-sized stars will not be observable for $`R\stackrel{>}{}10^4R_g`$. A comparison with the case of a large star, Figure 6, shows that flares from these are observable up to radii of $`\text{few}\times 10^4R_g`$, i.e. just a factor of few higher. Moreover, this conclusion is independent of the disk midplane density: the X-ray luminosity of stars passing through the disk at a given radii cannot exceed $`L_{\mathrm{max}}`$. Thus we conclude that as far as X-ray flares are concerned, only the “inner” disk region with $`R<\text{few}\times 10^4R_g`$ matters.

At smaller disk radii, the disk becomes optically thin to X-rays along the line of sight to the observer and at this point the X-ray luminosity curves change their slope. The X-ray luminosity dependence on the radius is much weaker in the optically thin regime (see eq. 31). Clearly “large” stars produce higher luminosities than do the “small” ones, in both optically thin and thick regimes. This is easily understood from the fact that the total work done by the star on the disk is proportional to the area of the star (equation 28), plus radiative cooling is actually more important for larger stars (equation 31). There is of course fewer high mass stars than there is low mass ones in Sgr A star cluster (Genzel et al. 2003), and this means that the prediction of the model is that high luminosity flares should be a minority.

Spectra emitted by flares from passages of low mass stars are likely to be relatively soft, i.e. with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }\stackrel{>}{}2`$. We reach this conclusion based on the fact that radiative cooling time for such flares is always much longer than the adiabatic expansion time (see thin solid versus dotted curves in Fig. 5), and hence the gas will expand and cool significantly before a large fraction of the shock mechanical power is radiated away. As a result one should also expect a strong “hot” Fe K$`\alpha `$ line to be emitted by such flares.

On the other hand, for high mass stars the adiabatic expansion time is longer and hence the “average” temperature of X-ray emitting gas should be larger than that from the smaller stars. This is especially true for star-disk collisions at radii $`\stackrel{<}{}\text{few}\times 10^3R_g`$ because then the characteristic temperature is very high, i.e. $`T_{\mathrm{char}}10^9`$ K, and even if the emitting gas temperature is significantly smaller than this it may still be high enough that the 2-8 keV part of the spectrum is a pure power-law with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }1.52`$. Correspondingly Fe K$`\alpha `$ line emission should be much weaker from such flares. Since these are also the brightest flares we conclude that, statistically speaking, bright flares should have harder spectra than the less luminous ones, and they should show less of the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line emission.

Duration of typical flares is in the range of one to tens of kilo seconds. We should stress that this result is quite model independent. Flares with longer durations are not detectable because they are too weak; flares shorter that about a thousand seconds may not exist because we found that the disk cannot extend much into the innermost region (see §3.1). Even if it did, the cooling time there becomes very long and the X-ray emission would then continue for times longer than $`t_{\mathrm{dur}}H/v_{}`$.

The near infrared (2.2$`\mu `$ here) emission is quite weak in all the models, at or below the $`2\times 10^{35}`$ erg/sec upper limit set by Hornstein et al. (2002). This is partially because the black-body emission is a rather narrow feature and in most cases the 2.2$`\mu `$ is either on the Wien exponential tail or on the Rayleigh-Jeans part of the curve. We should also note that the NIR luminosities are calculated under the optically thick assumption which may be violated for the smallest values of the disk surface density $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. However most likely optically thin spectra would peak in the optical band again producing little NIR flux to be detected (see §7). Next “complication” in the way of detecting NIR flares from the GC in the context of our model is the fact that they happen not exactly at the Sgr A position. The angular separation correspond to $`R=10^4R_g`$ is about 0.1″. With current telescopes a star’s position can be measured with a better accuracy, e.g. to within about 0.01″(Schödel et al. 2002), and hence if a flare indeed happened $`0.1`$ arcsec away from Sgr A position it would not be even counted as the one coming from the black hole and probably be discounted as noise.

The cyclotron frequency in the hot blob is about 1 GHz, assuming equipartition magnetic field. However, its intensity is many orders of magnitude larger than the Rayleigh-Jeans intensity at this frequency, so this emission is completely self-absorbed and therefore impossible to observe. It is unlikely that non-thermal mechanisms could significantly alter this conclusion. Therefore our model predicts no radio-flares correlated with X-ray flares (but star-disk interactions may have indirect implications for the jet and hence some radio variability may in fact be due to stars; see also Nayakshin & Sunyaev 2003).

## 9 Comparison with observations of X-ray flares

Observational facts for X-ray flares from Sgr A may be summarized as following (Baganoff et al. 2001, 2003b; Goldwurm et al. 2003a). The maximum X-ray luminosity detected so far is $`L_x10^{35}`$ erg/sec. Such strong flares are relatively rare; i.e. there is probably $`510`$ times more of the weaker $`L_x\stackrel{<}{}10^{34}`$ erg/sec flares. Counting all detectable flares, there is about one flare per day on average. There seems to be no NIR or radio counterparts to the flares (Baganoff et al. 2003b; Hornstein et al. 2002). In particular the radio source has never varied by more than a factor of 2 during many years of observations (Zhao, Bower, & Goss 2001). The NIR limits on random $`3`$ hour flares are about $`2\times 10^{35}`$ erg/sec, much too tight for many existing models of Sgr A (Hornstein et al. 2002). The spectra appear to be harder than those during quiescence and show little if any Fe K$`\alpha `$ line emission (both Baganoff et al. 2001 and Goldwurm et al. 2003a,b X-ray spectra contain weak emission-line like features at energies not too far from the expected Fe K$`\alpha `$ line but detailed modeling is difficult due to poor statistic. Goldwurm et al. 2003b put an upper limit of 1.8 keV on a 6.4 keV Fe K$`\alpha `$ line feature in their spectrum of an X-ray flare). In addition there are indications that some flares may be much softer and are complex around the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line energy (P. Predehl, private communication). To this list of Sgr A flare properties we should also add the fact that if Sgr A is indeed a Low Luminosity AGN, then it is the only one that shows such large magnitude flares.

The following flare characteristics appear to have a reasonable explanation in our model (we place items in order from very model independent to less so):

* (i) Frequency of flares, i.e. number of flares per day, which in our model is around few per day (see §3.1 and in particular equation 17).
* (ii) Duration of X-ray flares is in the range of $``$ one to tens of kilo seconds.
* (iii) X-ray luminosities of observed flares in the peak of their light-curves are consistent with the maximum allowed luminosities in our model (equation 38 with $`ϵ_x`$ given by equation 30). Namely, the observed luminosities are best explained by an optically thin disk with midplane density of order $`10^{11}`$ hydrogen nuclei per cm3.
* (iv) X-ray flares from similar star-disk encounters in the nuclei of other LLAGN. On the one hand, the maximum X-ray luminosity of flares at a given dimensionless distance $`r_4`$ from the black hole is that given by equation 38, which behaves as $`L_xn_{\mathrm{ot}}^2H^21/M_{\mathrm{BH}}^2`$. That is more massive black holes produce weaker X-ray flares. Further, the background quiescent X-ray luminosity of confirmed LLAGN is always larger than that of Sgr A, usually by some 3-6 orders of magnitude. On the other hand, some nearby Galaxies, e.g. M31 is not detected in X-rays, whereas M32 has just been detected with $`L_x10^{36}`$ erg/sec (Ho et al. 2003). Hence flares in the nearby galaxies could be detectable if similar inactive disks exist there. Clearly the prospects of such discoveries in the future, in particular with XEUS and Constellation-X missions, are much greater than they are with Chandra now.
* (v) X-ray spectra are expected to have a distribution of properties. The brightest flares however should be produced by large stars striking the disk at relatively small radii, and these should have spectra as hard as $`\mathrm{\Gamma }1.5`$ with little Fe K$`\alpha `$ line emission. Less luminous flares may have flatter spectra, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }\stackrel{>}{}2`$, and stronger Fe K$`\alpha `$ line emission.
* (vi) Near infrared (NIR) luminosity of flares produced by the shock around the star is around or smaller than the current detection limit at 2.2$`\mu `$ (see §7).
* (vii) No flare radio emission is expected in our model during the star-disk impact. Such emission is completely self-absorbed in our model.

## 10 Shortcomings and limitations

This paper presented a rather simplified treatment of the problem. While aware of many of the potential complications or modifications to our results, we kept the treatment at the present level of complexity to have a relatively simple but broad view of the different sides of the model. Nevertheless it is important to point out some of these effects that we plan to study in the future.

First of all, as mentioned in §5.1.1, the exact geometry of the star-disk passage is crucial for quantitatively accurate results. Namely, the angle that the star makes with the disk rotation velocity, $`\theta _r`$, controls the total mechanical energy deposition rate. Here we simply assumed $`\theta _r=\pi /2`$. Further, the angle that the star makes with the normal to the disk determines the velocity component perpendicular to the disk, which is important for the duration of the X-ray burst (e.g. see equation 23). In addition, the relative position of the observer to the disk and the star’s direction of motion is also relevant. The emission of the shocked gas viewed from the back side of the star is different than that from the front side of the star.

Next complication is due to the fact that stars are of course not on circular Keplerian orbits. In fact many of the observed stars have highly elliptical orbits, many with $`e0.9`$ (e.g. Genzel et al. 2003; Ghez et al. 2003b). Therefore one needs to also allow for variation in the absolute value of $`v_{}`$ instead of simply using $`v_{}=v_K`$ as we have done in this paper. Similarly, we did not consider the case of a very bright star such as S2 (e.g. Schödel et al. 2002), or stars that produce substantial winds. Another complexity is that the abundance of the putative disk in Sgr A need not be Solar. In fact if the disk is currently fed by the hot Helium rich stars, then the Hydrogen in the disk may be under-abundant. Additionally, Sgr A star cluster may house a number of compact objects – white dwarfs, neutron stars and stellar mass black holes. These would produce flares quite different from those that we have studied here.

The aforementioned effects clearly demonstrate that our results may be hoped to be representative of only the most frequent cases. Due to these effects the spread in the properties of the expected flares should be expected to be quite significant. These issues should be addressed in the future with a more detailed likely numerical model.

## 11 Discussion

In this paper we proposed that the observed X-ray flares in Sgr A are emitted by bow shocks around stars when the latter pass through an inactive disk. Such a disk has recently been invoked by Nayakshin (2003) to explain the quiescent spectrum of Sgr A. The disk may be a remnant of the past accretion and star formation activity in our Galactic Center (§2.1; see also Levin & Beloborodov 2003). Due to quiescent Sgr A spectral constraints, the disk temperature is restricted to be of order $`10^2`$ K, whereas the size of the disk is at least few $`\times 10^4`$ gravitational radii. The disk should be optically thin in mid infrared frequencies or else it would violate the existing limits on the quiescent Sgr A luminosity (see §2.2; Cuadra et al. 2003). From modeling X-ray flare luminosities we concluded that the disk midplane density is of order $`10^{11}`$ Hydrogen nuclei per cm3. Such a disk is quite “light” – it is not a subject to gravitational instability and it will not gravitationally influence the dynamics of Sgr A stellar cluster significantly (see §2).

Using the latest results on star content in Sgr A stellar cluster (Genzel et al. 2003), we calculated the rate of the star-disk crossings to be few per day (§3). We then found that the rate of star-disk crossings in the inner disk region with size $`R_i10^3R_g`$ is so large that the disk is very likely to be completely emptied out (e.g. accreted) by the star passages within astrophysically reasonable time of $`10^6`$ years.

In §4 we have shown schematics of a single star-disk passage, and pointed out the relation of our work to the previous extensive literature on the star-disk passages. We then studied properties of the expected X-ray flares in §5, first in the optically thin regime (§5.1), and then in the regime in which the disk is optically thick to X-rays. In the optically thin disk case most of the emission during the star-disk passage occurs in the X-ray band. In the optically thick case, on the other hand, no X-rays are observable from the shock front while it is inside the disk. The emission is then reprocessed in the infrared. X-ray flares are nevertheless are emitted when the shock arrives at the disk photosphere. The maximum X-ray luminosity is emitted when the shock front is at $`\tau 1`$ where $`\tau `$ is effective optical depth to X-rays along the line of sight. This then sets a very important limit on the maximum X-ray luminosity that could be emitted in the star-disk passages (equation 38).

The predicted spectra range from very hard (bremsstrahlung dominated) spectra with spectral index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }1.5`$ to softer ones for weaker X-ray flares with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }\stackrel{>}{}2`$6.1). The hardest spectra are also predicted to show little Fe K$`\alpha `$ line emission whereas softer flares should generally show the Helium and Hydrogen like components of such lines. Finally, these lines could be significantly red- or blue-shifted depending on whether the flare occurs on the approaching or the the receding side of the disk: $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{\mathrm{line}}(v_K/c)\mathrm{sin}i\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}6.7}\mathrm{keV}=50\mathrm{sin}i\mathrm{eV}r_4^{1/2}`$. This in principle can be observable with XMM and in future with Astro-E(2).

Comparing this maximum luminosity to the observed X-ray flare luminosities we concluded that the disk must be somewhat optically thin to X-rays at least in its innermost region. This then explains why there is no excess absorption in the cold disk along the line of site in our model, in accordance with the observations (Baganoff et al. 2001, 2003b; Goldwurm et al. 2003a). In addition, we have shown that the disk unshocked material is also photo-ionized by X-rays from the shock (§6.2). For brightest ($`L_x\stackrel{>}{}10^{35}`$ erg/sec) flares the photo-ionization alone could reduce the absorption in the unshocked gas to the observed levels. Nevertheless weaker flares, generally occurring at larger radii, may show signatures of cold gas absorption as well as “hot” Fe K$`\alpha `$ lines.

Another important aspect of the predicted maximum X-ray flare luminosity (equation 38) is that flares occurring at radii greater than $`\text{few}\times 10^4R_g`$ are too weak to be distinguishable on the background X-ray emission of Sgr A. This fact then explains why the flares have durations in the range from one to tens of kiloseconds (see §8).

One of the most promising ways to confirm or rule out our model is through observations of Fe K$`\alpha `$ line emission and/or absorption features in X-ray spectra of flares. Discovery of such atomic features in Sgr A spectra would provide a very strong support for our model since these atomic features are unlikely to be produced in the context of the three other existing models for Sgr A flares (Markoff et al. (2001); Liu & Melia 2002; Narayan 2002, §5.3). In all of these models flares come from a region very close to the black hole, i.e., $`10R_g`$, because otherwise the time scales of the flares would be too long (Baganoff et al. 2001). The gas (electron’s) temperature is very large in this inner region, i.e., $`T\stackrel{>}{}10^{10}`$ K in the model by Narayan (2002, Fig. 5), $`T10^910^{11}`$ K in Liu & Melia (2002), and finally in the jet model of Markoff et al. 2001 the gas is relativistic. These temperatures are far too high to allow any noticeable Fe K$`\alpha `$ line emission. In addition, gas densities are very low in some of these models (e.g., in an ADAF or a CDAF), and the recombination time scale for completely ionized Fe becomes many orders of magnitude longer than the burst duration, again making Fe K$`\alpha `$ line emission implausible.

We also found that similar X-ray flares resulting from star-disk passages in other LLAGN and nearby inactive Galaxies are rather hard to detect except for the most nearby and low black hole mass sources. As mentioned in §9, the predicted maximum X-ray flare luminosity (equation 38) behaves as $`L_{\mathrm{max}}1/M_{\mathrm{BH}}^2`$. In contrast, the quiescent X-ray luminosity is proportional to $`\dot{m}M_{\mathrm{BH}}`$ where $`\dot{m}`$ is the dimensionless accretion rate (in the usual Eddington units). Hence it becomes more and more difficult to discover such flares with increase in the black hole mass. Yet some of the nearby sources may show detectable flares. For example, the recently detected nuclear X-ray source in M32 has $`0.55`$ keV luminosity of about $`10^{36}`$ erg/sec (Ho et al. 2003; the black hole mass in M32 is very similar to that of Sgr A). This luminosity is low enough to allow detection of the strongest X-ray flares, especially in the future with instruments such as XEUS and Constellation-X. Galaxies not yet detected in X-rays, such as M31, hold an even greater promise for future detection of X-ray flares.

Another very promising way to confirm or refute our model is through detection of a NIR flare counterpart. In our model these flares are emitted some $`10^310^4R_g`$ off Sgr A location, which translates to $`0.010.1`$ arcseconds. Current observational techniques do allow to measure such a small angular offset to be measured (Genzel et al. 2003; Ghez et al. 2003b). Unfortunately the NIR emission from flares was predicted to be relatively weak (§7), although more work is needed to refine this. The properties of the disk can also be constrained via stellar eclipses and other similar effects (Nayakshin & Sunyaev 2003; Cuadra et al. 2003).

## ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are very thankful for receiving the drafts of two not yet published papers from R. Genzel, R. Schödel and T. Ott, and for useful discussions that followed. We also appreciate discussions with P. Predehl, A. Goldwurm & A. Ghez. Comments from many of our colleagues at MPA in Garching have also been very useful.