The Limited Lifetime of Self-Gravitating Accretion Disks In Galactic Centers

[2608.27586] The Limited Lifetime of Self-Gravitating Accretion Disks In Galactic Centers Skip to main content Search Submit Donate Log in Astrophysics > Astrophysics of Galaxies arXiv:2608.27586 (astro-ph) [Submitted on 27 Aug 2026] Title: The Limited Lifetime of Self-Gravitating Accretion Disks In Galactic Centers Authors: Isaac Shlosman (University of Kentucky, Lexington, USA) View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract: Globally self-gravitating accretion disks in active galactic nuclei (AGN) have been frequently discussed in the literature, but never observed. Few dozen mega-masering accretion disks in AGN have been detected, which display a clear Keplerian rotation on scales of 0.1-1 pc, allowing to estimate their masses within the sphere of influence (SoI) of the central supermassive black holes (SMBHs) to be smaller by more than a factor of 10, compared with the parent SMBH masses. Furthermore, the stellar components, deep inside the SoI, are dwarfed by the SMBH masses of M_BH ~ few X 10^6 - few X 10^7 Mo. Theoretically, no limit exists on sizes and masses of gaseous disks in AGN, which in principle, can exceed masses of their central compact objects. We analyze instabilities which can operate in gaseous disks, i.e., fragmentation for a locally dominant self-gravity and spontaneous breaking of axial symmetry for the globally self-gravitating disks. We invoke the gas response to the latter instability which leads to gravitational collapse, leaving a negligible mass behind and dynamically stable remnants. Consequently, the characteristic timescale for globally self-gravitating disks to exist in AGN should not exceed few rotations, t_phi ~ 10^{3-4} yrs for M_BH ~ 10^{6-8} Mo. Disk rebuilding is expected to be > 10^7 yrs, meaning that probability of finding is < 10^{-3}, which explains their lack of detection. We conclude that observed sub-parsec disks in AGN, at least the Keplerian masering ones, can be remnants of globally self-gravitating accretion disks, and the instability timescale can be related to the duty cycle of AGN, t_duty ~ 10t_phi ~ 10^{4-5} yr. Comments: Accepted by Galaxies/MDPI 2026, Volume 14, Issue 5, 82 Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) ; Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) Cite as: arXiv:2608.27586 [astro-ph.GA] (or arXiv:2608.27586v1 [astro-ph.GA] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.27586 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Submission history From: Isaac Shlosman [ view email ] [v1] Thu, 27 Aug 2026 18:11:00 UTC (175 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View PDF HTML (experimental) TeX Source view license Current browse context: astro-ph.GA < prev | next > new | recent | 2026-08 Change to browse by: astro-ph astro-ph.CO References & Citations INSPIRE HEP SciX Google Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer ( What is the Explorer? ) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers ( What is Connected Papers? ) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps ( What is Litmaps? ) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations ( What are Smart Citations? ) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv ( What is alphaXiv? ) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers ( What is CatalyzeX? ) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub ( What is DagsHub? ) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub ( What is GotitPub? ) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face ( What is Huggingface? ) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast ( What is ScienceCast? ) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate ( What is Replicate? ) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces ( What is Spaces? ) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI ( What is TXYZ.AI? ) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower ( What are Influence Flowers? ) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender ( What is CORE? ) IArxiv recommender toggle IArxiv Recommender ( What is IArxiv? ) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs . Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax ( What is MathJax? ) We gratefully acknowledge support from our major funders , member institutions , and all contributors. About · Help · Contact · Subscribe · Copyright · Privacy · Accessibility · Operational Status (opens in new tab)

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