2003/02/28 by David Merritt, M. Y. Poon · 8 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Accretion (finance) #Angular momentum #Astronomy #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Binary black hole #Black hole (networking) #Classical mechanics #Galaxy #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Gravitational wave #Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Spin-flip #Stars #Velocity dispersion #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/382497
published as Astrophys.J. 606 (2004) 788-798 · 29 pages, 6 figures
arxiv created 2003/08/13 · openalex publication_date 2004/05/07 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
In classical loss cone theory, stars are supplied to a central black hole via gravitational scattering onto low angular momentum orbits. Higher feeding rates are possible if the gravitational potential near the black hole is nonaxisymmetric and the orbits are chaotic. Motivated by recently published, self-consistent models, we evaluate rates of stellar capture and disruption in triaxial nuclei. Rates are found to substantially exceed those in collisionally resupplied loss cones, as long as an appreciable fraction of the orbits are centrophilic. The mass captured by a black hole after a given time in a steep (ρ ~ r -2 ) nucleus scales as σ 5 with σ the stellar velocity dispersion, and the accumulated mass in 10 10 yr is of the correct order to reproduce the M • -σ relation. Triaxiality can solve the "final parsec problem" of decaying black hole binaries by increasing the flux of stars into the binary's loss cone.