Star distribution in the presence of a massive central gas cloud

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Abstract
The formalism based on simple scaling arguments, recently developed to investigate the effects of a central massive black hole on the distribution of the surrounding stars is extended to treat the case when the central object is a massive gas cloud. Our results show that, at least for some systems, the presence of a gas cloud may be identified by the nature of the stellar density profile established in a region at some distance from the cloud. In addition, we obtain qualitative expressions for the two rates of physical interest; the capture and strike rate. The former is related to the process of entrapment of stars by the cloud while the latter is associated with the transfer of energy between the stellar and gaseous components of the system.

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