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Observations have revealed a relative paucity of red giant (RG) stars withinthe central 0.5pc in the Galactic Center (GC). Motivated by this finding weinvestigate the hypothesis that collisions of stars with a fragmentingaccretion disk are responsible for the observed dearth of evolved stars. We use3-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations to model a star with radius $10R_{\odot}$ and mass $1 M_{\odot}$, representative of the missing population ofRGs, colliding with high density clumps. We find that multiple collisions withclumps of column density $\gtrsim10^{8}\, {\rm g\,cm^{-2}}$ can strip asubstantial fraction of the star's envelope and in principle render itinvisible to observations. Simulations confirm that repeated impacts areparticularly efficient in driving mass loss as partially stripped RGs expandand have increased cross sections for subsequent collisions. Because theenvelope is unbound on account of the kinetic energy of the star, anysignificant amount of stripping of the RG population in the GC should bemirrored by a systematic decay of their orbits and possibly by their enhancedrotational velocity. To be viable, this scenario requires that the total massof the fragmenting disk has been several orders of magnitude higher than thatof the early type stars which now form the stellar disk in the GC.

Can Star-Disk Collisions Explain the Missing Red Giants Problem in the Galactic Center?