2023/10/04 by Erez Michaely, Michaely, Erez, Smadar Naoz +1
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) #FOS: Physical sciences #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) #Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR) #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2310.02558
openalex publication_date 2023/10/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The inner 500\rm pc in the galactic center is dense with stars and a dynamically hot environment. Here, we focus on wide binaries as a source of tidally or collisional interactions. These binaries were previously ignored as sources of binary interaction because they are too wide to have a close pericenter passage, or they will quickly become unbound (ionized) due to gravitational interactions with passing neighbors. However, we show that wide binaries tend to interact more frequently with neighboring stars due to their larger cross-section for gravitational impulse interactions. These interactions mainly torque the wide system, causing it to change its eccentricity. As a result, the eccentricity might be excited to sufficiently high values, causing the binary to interact at the pericenter. As a proof of concept, we present four channels of such interactions: binary main-sequence (MS), white-dwarf (WD) - MS, black hole - MS, and lastly, WD-WD. During Galaxy's lifetime, we predict tens of thousands of MS-MS interacting binaries that may form G2-like objects later appear younger than their environment. X-ray signatures and, perhaps, supernovae may result from thousands of WD-MS and WD-WD interacting binaries from this channel. Lastly, we predict a few hundred BH-MS interacting binaries at the inner 500~pc.