Tidal disruptions of separated binaries in galactic nuclei (original) (raw)

Tidal Disruption Flares: The Accretion Disk Phase

The Astrophysical Journal, 2011

The evolution of an accretion disk, formed as a consequence of the disruption of a star by a black hole, is followed by solving numerically hydrodynamic equations. The present investigation aims to study the dependence of resulting light curves on dynamical and physical properties of such a transient disk during its existence. One of the main results derived from our simulations is that blackbody fits of X-ray data tend to overestimate the true mean disk temperature. In fact, the temperature derived from blackbody fits should be identified with the color X-ray temperature rather than the average value derived from the true temperature distribution along the disk. The time interval between the beginning of the circularization of the bound debris and the beginning of the accretion process by the black hole is determined by the viscous (or accretion) timescale, which also fixes the rising part of the resulting light curve. The luminosity peak coincides with the beginning of matter accretion by the black hole and the late evolution of the light curve depends on the evolution of the debris fallback rate. Peak bolometric luminosities are in the range 10 45 − 10 46 erg s −1 whereas peak luminosities in soft X-rays (0.2-2.0 keV) are typically one order of magnitude lower. The typical timescale derived from our preferred models for the flare luminosity to decay by two orders of magnitude is about 3-4 years. Predicted soft X-ray light curves reproduce quite well data on galaxies in which a variable X-ray emission, possibly related to a tidal event was detected. In the case of NGC 3599 and IC 3599, data are well reproduced by models defined by a black hole with mass ∼ 10 7 M ⊙ and a disrupted star of about one solar mass. The X-ray variation observed in XMMSL1 is consistent with a model defined by a black hole with mass ∼ 3 × 10 6 M ⊙ and a disrupted star of one solar mass, while that observed in the galaxy situated in the cluster A1689 is consistent with a model including a black hole of ∼ 10 7 M ⊙ and a disrupted star of ∼ 0.5 M ⊙ .

Tidal Breakup of Binary Stars at the Galactic Center and Its Consequences

2010

In Paper I, we followed the evolution of binary stars as they orbited near the supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the Galactic center, noting the cases in which the two stars would come close enough together to collide. In this paper we replace the point-mass stars by fluid realizations, and use a smoothed-particle hydrodynamics (SPH) code to follow the close interactions. We model the binary components as main-sequence stars with initial masses of 1, 3 and 6 Solar masses, and with chemical composition profiles taken from stellar evolution codes. Outcomes of the close interactions include mergers, collisions that leave both stars intact, and ejection of one star at high velocity accompanied by capture of the other star into a tight orbit around the SMBH. For the first time, we follow the evolution of the collision products for many (100) orbits around the SMBH. Stars that are initially too small to be tidally disrupted by the SMBH can be puffed up by close encounters or collisions, with the result that tidal stripping occurs in subsequent periapse passages. In these cases, mass loss occurs episodically, sometimes for hundreds of orbits before the star is completely disrupted. Repeated tidal flares, of either increasing or decreasing intensity, are a predicted consequence. In collisions involving a low-mass and a high-mass star, the merger product acquires a high core hydrogen abundance from the smaller star, effectively resetting the nuclear evolution "clock" to a younger age. Elements like Li, Be and B that can exist only in the outermost envelope of a star are severely depleted due to envelope ejection during collisions and due to tidal forces from the SMBH. Tidal spin-up can occur due to either a collision or tidal torque by the SMBH at periapsis. However, in the absence of collisions, tidal spin-up of stars is only important in a narrow range of periapse distances, r t /2 r per r t with r t the tidal disruption radius. We discuss the implications of these results for the formation of the S-stars and the hypervelocity stars. a Subject headings: black hole physics-Galaxy:center-Galaxy:kinematics and dynamic

Tidal Disruption of a Main-sequence Star by an Intermediate-mass Black Hole: A Bright Decade

The Astrophysical Journal, 2018

There has been suggestive evidence of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs; 10 3−5 M e) existing in some globular clusters (GCs) and dwarf galaxies, but IMBHs as a population remain elusive. As a main-sequence star passes too close by an IMBH it might be tidally captured and disrupted. We study the long-term accretion and observational consequence of such tidal disruption events. The disruption radius is hundreds to thousands of the BH's Schwarzschild radius, so the circularization of the falling-back debris stream is very inefficient due to weak general relativity effects. Due to this and a high mass fallback rate, the bound debris initially goes through a ∼10 yr long super-Eddington accretion phase. The photospheric emission of the outflow ejected during this phase dominates the observable radiation and peaks in the UV/optical bands with a luminosity of 10 erg s 42 1-. After the accretion rate drops below the Eddington rate, the bolometric luminosity follows the conventional t −5/3 powerlaw decay, and X-rays from the inner accretion disk start to be seen. Modeling the newly reported IMBH tidal disruption event candidate 3XMM J2150-0551, we find a general consistency between the data and predictions. The search for these luminous, long-term events in GCs and nearby dwarf galaxies could unveil the IMBH population.

An ultraviolet–optical flare from the tidal disruption of a helium-rich stellar core

Nature, 2012

The flare of radiation from the tidal disruption and accretion of a star can be used as a marker for supermassive black holes that otherwise lie dormant and undetected in the centres of distant galaxies 1 . Previous candidate flares 2-6 have had declining light curves in good agreement with expectations, but with poor constraints on the time of disruption and the type of star disrupted, because the rising emission was not observed. Recently, two 'relativistic' candidate tidal disruption events were discovered, each of whose extreme X-ray luminosity and synchrotron radio emission were interpreted as the onset of emission from a relativistic jet 7-10 . Here we report the discovery of a luminous ultraviolet-optical flare from the nuclear region of an inactive galaxy at a redshift of 0.1696. The observed continuum is cooler than expected for a simple accreting debris disk, but the well-sampled rise and decline of its light curve follows the predicted mass accretion rate, and can be modelled to determine the time of disruption to an accuracy of two days. The black hole has a mass of about 2 million solar masses, modulo a factor dependent on the mass and radius of the star disrupted. On the basis of the spectroscopic signature of ionized helium from the unbound debris, we determine that the disrupted star was a helium-rich stellar core.

JETS FROM TIDAL DISRUPTIONS OF STARS BY BLACK HOLES

Tidal disruption of main-sequence stars by black holes has generally been thought to lead to a signal dominated by UV emission. If, however, the black hole spins rapidly and the poloidal magnetic field intensity on the black hole horizon is comparable to the inner accretion disk pressure, a powerful jet may form whose luminosity can easily exceed the thermal UV luminosity. When the jet beam points at Earth, its non-thermal luminosity can dominate the emitted spectrum. The thermal and non-thermal components decay differently with time. In particular, the thermal emission should remain roughly constant for a significant time after the period of maximum accretion, beginning to diminish only after a delay, whereas after the peak accretion rate, the non-thermal jet emission decays, but then reaches a plateau. Both transitions are tied to a characteristic timescale t Edd at which the accretion rate falls below Eddington. Making use of this timescale in a new parameter-inference formalism for tidal disruption events with significant emission from a jet, we analyze the recent flare source Swift J2058. It is consistent with an event in which a main-sequence solar-type star is disrupted by a black hole of mass ∼ 4 × 10 7 M. The beginning of the flat phase in the non-thermal emission from this source can possibly be seen in the late-time light curve. Optical photometry over the first 40 days of this flare is also consistent with this picture, but is only weakly constraining because the bolometric correction is very uncertain. We suggest that future searches for main-sequence tidal disruptions use methods sensitive to jet radiation as well as to thermal UV radiation.

Tidal disruption rate of stars by supermassive black holes obtained by direct N-body simulations

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2011

The disruption rate of stars by supermassive black holes (SMBHs) is calculated numerically with a modified version of Aarseth's NBODY6 code. Equal-mass systems without primordial binaries are treated. The initial stellar distribution around the SMBH follows a Sérsic n = 4 profile representing bulges of late type galaxies as well of early type galaxies without central light deficits, i.e. without cores. In order to infer relaxation driven effects and to increase the statistical significance, a very large set of N-body integrations with different particle numbers N, ranging from 10 3 to 0.5 · 10 6 particles, is performed. Three different black hole capture radii are taken into account, enabling us to scale these results to a broad range of astrophysical systems with relaxation times shorter than one Hubble time, i.e. for SMBHs up to M • ≈ 10 7 M ⊙ . The computed number of disrupted stars are driven by diffusion in angular momentum space into the loss cone of the black hole and the rate scales with the total number of particles as dN dt ∝ N b , where b is as large as 0.83. This is significantly steeper than the expected scaling dN dt ∝ ln(N ) derived from simplest energy relaxation arguments. Only a relatively modest dependence of the tidal disruption rate on the mass of the SMBH is found and we discuss our results in the context of the M • − σ relation. The number of disrupted stars contribute a significant part to the mass growth of black holes in the lower mass range as long as a significant part of the stellar mass becomes swallowed by the SMBH. This also bears direct consequences for the search and existence of IMBHs in globular clusters. For SMBHs similar to the galactic center black hole Sgr A ⋆ , a tidal disruption rate of 55 ± 27 events per Myr is deduced. Finally relaxation driven stellar feeding can not account for the masses of massive black holes M • ≥ 10 7 M ⊙ in complete agreement with conventional gas accretion and feedback models.

Light-curve Evolution of the Nearest Tidal Disruption Event: A Late-time, Radio-only Flare

The Astrophysical Journal, 2022

Tidal disruption events (TDEs) occur when a star passes close enough to a galaxy’s supermassive black hole to be disrupted by tidal forces. We discuss new observations of IGRJ12580+0134, a TDE observed in NGC 4845 (d = 17 Mpc) in 2010 November, with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA 9 9 The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. ). We also discuss a reanalysis of 2010–2011 Swift and XMM-Newton observations, as well as new, late-time Swift observations. Our JVLA observations show a decay of the nuclear radio flux until 2015, when a plateau was seen, and then a significant (factor ∼3) radio flare during 2016. The 2016 radio flare was also accompanied by radio spectral changes, but was not seen in the X-rays. We model the flare as resulting from the interaction of the nuclear jet with a cloud in the interstellar medium. This is distinct from late-time X-ray flares...