Evolution of self-gravitating accretion disks in active galactic nuclei

Abstract

The evolution of self-gravitating gaseous disks in active galactic nuclei on scales of about 10-1000 pc is investigated. Star formation is a plausible outcome of the Jeans instability operating in a disk which violates the criterion for local stability. Even a low efficiency of star formation would deplete the gaseous disk on a short time scale and create a flat stellar system. These systems can evolve (sphericalize) secularly by means of stellar encounters but this process appears to be too slow to be important. Such flattened stellar systems may be common in the circumnuclear regions of disk galaxies. Conventional viscosities are inefficient in building anew the accretion process even in a cosmological time. Strongly self-gravitating disks are unstable to global nonaxisymmetric modes, which can induce radial inflow of gas in a short dynamical time. The latter effect is studied in a separate paper.