Optical Appearance of Eccentric Tidal Disruption Events

Abstract Stars approaching supermassive black holes can be tidally disrupted. Despite being expected to emit X-rays, tidal disruption events (TDEs) have been largely observed in optical bands, which is poorly understood. In this Letter, we simulate the tidal disruption of a 1 M ⊙ main-sequence star...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAstrophysical journal. Letters Vol. 963; no. 1; p. L27
Main Authors Hu, Fangyi (Fitz), Price, Daniel J., Mandel, Ilya
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Austin The American Astronomical Society 01.03.2024
IOP Publishing
Subjects
Accretion
Accretion disks
Black holes
Disruption
Hydrodynamics
Main sequence stars
Opacity
Photosphere
Relativistic particles
Smooth particle hydrodynamics
Supermassive black holes
Transient sources
Ultraviolet transient sources
X-ray transient sources
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Summary:Abstract Stars approaching supermassive black holes can be tidally disrupted. Despite being expected to emit X-rays, tidal disruption events (TDEs) have been largely observed in optical bands, which is poorly understood. In this Letter, we simulate the tidal disruption of a 1 M ⊙ main-sequence star on an eccentric ( e = 0.95) orbit with a periapsis distance 1 or 5 times smaller than the tidal radius ( β = 1 or 5) using general relativistic smoothed particle hydrodynamics. We follow the simulation for up to 1 yr postdisruption. We show that accretion disks in eccentric TDEs are masked by unbound material outflowing at ∼10,000 km s −1 . Assuming electron scattering opacity, this material would be visible as a ∼100 au photosphere at ∼10 4 K, in line with observations of candidate TDEs.
Bibliography:AAS51429
High-Energy Phenomena and Fundamental Physics
ISSN:2041-8205
2041-8213
DOI:10.3847/2041-8213/ad29ec