2015/02/28 by Christopher Evans, Pablo Laguna, Michael Eracleous · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #astro-ph.GA #astro-ph.HE #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/2041-8205/805/2/l19
5 pages, 1 table, 4 figures. Accepted for publication ApJL
arxiv created 2015/06/01 · arxiv updated 2015/06/03
A bright flare from a galactic nucleus followed at late times by a t-5/3 decay in luminosity is often considered the signature of the complete tidal disruption of a star by a massive black hole. The flare and power-law decay are produced when the stream of bound debris returns to the black hole, self-intersects, and eventually forms an accretion disk or torus. In the canonical scenario of a solar-type star disrupted by a 106 M_\odot black hole, the time between the disruption of the star and the formation of the accretion torus could be years. We present fully general relativistic simulations of a new class of tidal disruption events involving ultra-close encounters of solar-type stars with intermediate mass black holes. In these encounters, a thick disk forms promptly after disruption, on timescales of hours. After a brief initial flare, the accretion rate remains steady and highly super-Eddington for a few days at ∼ 102 M_\odot \rm yr-1.