scholarly journals A study on tidal disruption event dynamics around an Sgr A*-like massive black hole

2020 ◽  
Vol 642 ◽  
pp. A111
Author(s):  
A. Clerici ◽  
A. Gomboc

Context. The number of observed tidal disruption events is increasing rapidly with the advent of new surveys. Thus, it is becoming increasingly important to improve tidal disruption event models using different stellar and orbital parameters. Aims. We study the dynamical behaviour of tidal disruption events produced by an Sgr A*-like massive black hole by changing different initial orbital parameters, taking into account the observed orbits of S stars. Investigating different types of orbits and penetration factors is important since their variations lead to different timescales of the tidal disruption event debris dynamics, making mechanisms such as self-crossing and pancaking act strongly or weakly and thus affecting the circularisation and accretion disc formation. Methods. We performed smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations. Each simulation consisted of modelling the star with 105 particles, and the density profile is described by a polytrope with γ = 5/3. The massive black hole was modelled with a generalised post-Newtonian potential, which takes into account the relativistic effects of the Schwarzschild space-time. Results. Our analyses find that mass return rate distributions of solar-like stars and S-like stars with the same eccentricities have similar durations, but S-like stars have higher mass return rate distributions, as expected due to their larger masses. Regarding debris circularisation, we identify four types of evolution related to the mechanisms and processes involved during circularisation: in type 1, the debris does not circularise efficiently, hence a disc is not formed or is formed after a relatively long time; in type 2, the debris slowly circularises and eventually forms a disc with no debris falling back; in type 3, the debris circularises relatively quickly and forms a disc while there is still debris falling back; in type 4, the debris quickly and efficiently circularises, mainly through self-crossings and shocks, and forms a disc with no debris falling back. Finally, we find that the standard relation of circularisation radius rcirc = 2rt holds only for β = 1 and eccentricities close to parabolic.

2020 ◽  
Vol 639 ◽  
pp. A100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jari J. E. Kajava ◽  
Margherita Giustini ◽  
Richard D. Saxton ◽  
Giovanni Miniutti

Stars that pass too close to a super-massive black hole may be disrupted by strong tidal forces. OGLE16aaa is one such tidal disruption event (TDE) which rapidly brightened and peaked in the optical/UV bands in early 2016 and subsequently decayed over the rest of the year. OGLE16aaa was detected in an XMM-Newton X-ray observation on June 9, 2016 with a flux slightly below the Swift/XRT upper limits obtained during the optical light curve peak. Between June 16–21, 2016, Swift/XRT also detected OGLE16aaa and based on the stacked spectrum, we could infer that the X-ray luminosity had jumped up by more than a factor of ten in just one week. No brightening signal was seen in the simultaneous optical/UV data to cause the X-ray luminosity to exceed the optical/UV one. A further XMM-Newton observation on November 30, 2016 showed that almost a year after the optical/UV peak, the X-ray emission was still at an elevated level, while the optical/UV flux decay had already leveled off to values comparable to those of the host galaxy. In all X-ray observations, the spectra were nicely modeled with a 50–70 eV thermal component with no intrinsic absorption, with a weak X-ray tail seen only in the November 30 XMM-Newton observation. The late-time X-ray behavior of OGLE16aaa strongly resembles the tidal disruption events ASASSN-15oi and AT2019azh. We were able to pinpoint the time delay between the initial optical TDE onset and the X-ray brightening to 182 ± 5 days, which may possibly represent the timescale between the initial circularization of the disrupted star around the super-massive black hole and the subsequent delayed accretion. Alternatively, the delayed X-ray brightening could be related to a rapid clearing of a thick envelope that covers the central X-ray engine during the first six months.


2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (S285) ◽  
pp. 349-351
Author(s):  
A. J. Levan

AbstractWe present the discovery and monitoring observations of Swift 1644+57, a luminous outburst from the nucleus of a galaxy at z = 0.35. Precise astrometry ties the source to within a few hundred parsecs of the nucleus of its host, and suggests a link to the massive black hole that probably resides there. The high luminosity and rapid variability are strongly indicative of a beamed source. We suggest that this event is best explained by the tidal disruption of a passing star by the supermassive black hole, which simultaneously created a powerful panchromatic explosion. However, it has also been proposed that such events may be related to the core collapse of massive stars. Future observations of a sample of similar events, focussing on their locations within the hosts, should distinguish in a straightforward manner between the two proposals.


2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (S303) ◽  
pp. 238-241
Author(s):  
Ann-Marie Madigan ◽  
Oliver Pfuhl ◽  
Yuri Levin ◽  
Stefan Gillessen ◽  
Reinhard Genzel ◽  
...  

AbstractThe center of our Galaxy is home to a massive black hole, Sgr A*, and a nuclear star cluster containing stellar populations of various ages. While the late type stars may be too old to have retained memory of their initial orbital configuration, and hence formation mechanism, the kinematics of the early type stars should reflect their original distribution. In this contribution we present a new statistic which uses directly-observable kinematic stellar data to infer orbital parameters for stellar populations, and is capable of distinguishing between different origin scenarios. We use it on a population of B-stars in the Galactic center that extends out to large radii (∼0.5 pc) from the massive black hole. We find that the high K-magnitude population (≲15 M⊙) form an eccentric distribution, suggestive of a Hills binary-disruption origin.


2021 ◽  
Vol 503 (3) ◽  
pp. 4563-4575
Author(s):  
A Jiménez-Rosales ◽  
J Dexter ◽  
S M Ressler ◽  
A Tchekhovskoy ◽  
M Bauböck ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Using general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of accreting black holes, we show that a suitable subtraction of the linear polarization per pixel from total intensity images can enhance the photon ring feature. We find that the photon ring is typically a factor of ≃2 less polarized than the rest of the image. This is due to a combination of plasma and general relativistic effects, as well as magnetic turbulence. When there are no other persistently depolarized image features, adding the subtracted residuals over time results in a sharp image of the photon ring. We show that the method works well for sample, viable GRMHD models of Sgr A* and M87*, where measurements of the photon ring properties would provide new measurements of black hole mass and spin, and potentially allow for tests of the ‘no-hair’ theorem of general relativity.


2019 ◽  
Vol 485 (3) ◽  
pp. 4413-4422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel J D’Orazio ◽  
Abraham Loeb ◽  
James Guillochon

ABSTRACT The rate of tidal disruption flares (TDFs) per mass of the disrupting black hole encodes information on the present-day mass function (PDMF) of stars in the clusters surrounding super massive black holes. We explore how the shape of the TDF rate with black hole mass can constrain the PDMF, with only weak dependence on black hole spin. We show that existing data can marginally constrain the minimum and maximum masses of stars in the cluster, and the high-mass end of the PDMF slope, as well as the overall TDF rate. With $\mathcal {O}(100)$ TDFs expected to be identified with the Zwicky Transient Facility, the overall rate can be highly constrained, but still with only marginal constraints on the PDMF. However, if ${\lesssim } 10 {{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ of the TDFs expected to be found by LSST over a decade ($\mathcal {O}(10^3)$ TDFs) are identified, then precise and accurate estimates can be made for the minimum stellar mass (within a factor of 2) and the average slope of the high-mass PDMF (to within $\mathcal {O}(10{{\ \rm per\ cent}})$) in nuclear star clusters. This technique could be adapted in the future to probe, in addition to the PDMF, the local black hole mass function and possibly the massive black hole binary population.


2020 ◽  
Vol 636 ◽  
pp. L5 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
R. Abuter ◽  
A. Amorim ◽  
M. Bauböck ◽  
J. P. Berger ◽  
...  

The star S2 orbiting the compact radio source Sgr A* is a precision probe of the gravitational field around the closest massive black hole (candidate). Over the last 2.7 decades we have monitored the star’s radial velocity and motion on the sky, mainly with the SINFONI and NACO adaptive optics (AO) instruments on the ESO VLT, and since 2017, with the four-telescope interferometric beam combiner instrument GRAVITY. In this Letter we report the first detection of the General Relativity (GR) Schwarzschild Precession (SP) in S2’s orbit. Owing to its highly elliptical orbit (e = 0.88), S2’s SP is mainly a kink between the pre-and post-pericentre directions of motion ≈±1 year around pericentre passage, relative to the corresponding Kepler orbit. The superb 2017−2019 astrometry of GRAVITY defines the pericentre passage and outgoing direction. The incoming direction is anchored by 118 NACO-AO measurements of S2’s position in the infrared reference frame, with an additional 75 direct measurements of the S2-Sgr A* separation during bright states (“flares”) of Sgr A*. Our 14-parameter model fits for the distance, central mass, the position and motion of the reference frame of the AO astrometry relative to the mass, the six parameters of the orbit, as well as a dimensionless parameter fSP for the SP (fSP = 0 for Newton and 1 for GR). From data up to the end of 2019 we robustly detect the SP of S2, δϕ ≈ 12′ per orbital period. From posterior fitting and MCMC Bayesian analysis with different weighting schemes and bootstrapping we find fSP = 1.10 ± 0.19. The S2 data are fully consistent with GR. Any extended mass inside S2’s orbit cannot exceed ≈0.1% of the central mass. Any compact third mass inside the central arcsecond must be less than about 1000 M⊙.


2019 ◽  
Vol 487 (4) ◽  
pp. 4965-4984 ◽  
Author(s):  
J J Zanazzi ◽  
Dong Lai

ABSTRACT After the tidal disruption event (TDE) of a star around a supermassive black hole (SMBH), the bound stellar debris rapidly forms an accretion disc. If the accretion disc is not aligned with the spinning SMBH’s equatorial plane, the disc will be driven into Lense–Thirring precession around the SMBH’s spin axis, possibly affecting the TDE’s light curve. We carry out an eigenmode analysis of such a disc to understand how the disc’s warp structure, precession, and inclination evolution are influenced by the disc’s and SMBH’s properties. We find an oscillatory warp may develop as a result of strong non-Keplarian motion near the SMBH. The global disc precession frequency matches the Lense–Thirring precession frequency of a rigid disc around a spinning black hole within a factor of a few when the disc’s accretion rate is high, but deviates significantly at low accretion rates. Viscosity aligns the disc with the SMBH’s equatorial plane over time-scales of days to years, depending on the disc’s accretion rate, viscosity, and SMBH’s mass. We also examine the effect of fallback material on the warp evolution of TDE discs, and find that the fallback torque aligns the TDE disc with the SMBH’s equatorial plane in a few to tens of days for the parameter space investigated. Our results place constraints on models of TDE emission which rely on the changing disc orientation with respect to the line of sight to explain observations.


2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (S238) ◽  
pp. 405-406
Author(s):  
Mami Machida ◽  
Ryoji Matsumoto

AbstractWe present the results of global 3D MHD simulations of optically thin black hole accretion flows. The initial disk is embedded in a low density, spherical, isothermal halo and threaded by weak (β ≡ Pgas/Pmag = 100) toroidal magnetic field. General relativistic effects are simulated by using the pseudo-Newtonian potential. When the Maxwell stress in the innermost region of the disk is reduced due to the loss of magnetic flux or by decrease of disk temperature, inner torus is created around 4 – 10rs. We found that in such an inner torus, one-armed (m = 1) density enhancement grows and that the inner torus oscillates quasi-periodically. The oscillation period is about 0.1s when we assume a 10M⊙ black hole. This frequency agrees with the low-frequency QPOs observed in low/hard state of black hole candidates. The disk ejects winds whose opening angle is about 30 degree. The maximum velocity of the wind is about 0.05c.


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