Abstract
We investigate, by means of direct numerical N-body integration, the orbital evolution of an initially thin stellar disc around a dominating central mass. As a perturbation to the Keplerian stellar motions, we consider the gravitational influence of an extended spherically symmetric stellar cusp and the mutual gravitational interaction of the stars within the disc.
Our results suggest that the two-body relaxation of the disc, which is often neglected in similar analyses, leads to significant changes of its radial density profile on time-scales of 10(5)-10(6) yr for systems with dimensions of the young stellar disc observed in the Sgr A* region.