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Nuclear spiral arms are small-scale transient spiral structures found in thecenters of galaxies. Similarly to their galactic-scale counterparts, nuclearspiral arms can perturb the orbits of stars. In the case of the Galactic Center(GC), these perturbations can affect the orbits of stars and binaries in aregion extending to several hundred parsecs around the supermassive black hole(MBH), causing diffusion in orbital energy and angular momentum. This diffusionprocess can drive stars and binaries to close approaches with the MBH,disrupting single stars in tidal disruption events (TDEs), or disruptingbinaries, leaving a star tightly bound to the MBH, and an unbound star escapingthe galaxy, i.e., a hypervelocity star (HVS). Here, we consider diffusion bynuclear spiral arms in galactic nuclei, specifying to the Milky Way GC. Wedetermine nuclear spiral arm-driven diffusion rates using test-particleintegrations, and compute disruption rates. Our TDE rates are up to 20% highercompared to relaxation by single stars. For binaries, the enhancement is up toa factor of ~100, and our rates are comparable to the observed numbers of HVSsand S-stars. Our scenario is complementary to relaxation driven by massiveperturbers. In addition, our rates depend on the inclination of the binary withrespect to the Galactic plane. Therefore, our scenario provides a novelpotential source for the observed anisotropic distribution of HVSs. Nuclearspiral arms may also be important for accelerating the coalescence of binaryMBHs, and for supplying nuclear star clusters with stars and gas.

Relaxation near supermassive black holes driven by nuclear spiral arms: anisotropic hypervelocity stars, S-stars and tidal disruption events