TIDAL DISRUPTION AND IGNITION OF WHITE DWARFS BY MODERATELY MASSIVE BLACK HOLES

By Stephan Rosswog, E. Ramirez-Ruiz, W. Hix. 2008

170 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present a numerical investigation of the tidal disruption of white dwarfs by moderately massive black holes, with particular reference to the centers of dwarf galaxies and globular clusters. Special attention is given to the fate of white dwarfs of all masses that approach the black hole close enough to be disrupted and severely compressed to such an extent that explosive nuclear burning can be triggered. Consistent modeling of the gas dynamics together with the nuclear reactions allows for a realistic determination of the explosive energy release. In the most favorable cases, the nuclear energy release may be comparable to that of typical Type Ia supernovae. Although the explosion will increase the mass fraction escaping on hyperbolic orbits, a good fraction of the debris remains to be swallowed by the hole, causing a bright soft X-ray flare lasting for about a year. Such transient signatures, if detected, would be a compelling testimony for the presence of a moderately massive black hole (below 105 M☉).

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/eb51661a3155f549399e7051af5a29beca2240a7

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Citations in the corpus

HYDRODYNAMICAL SIMULATIONS TO DETERMINE THE FEEDING RATE OF BLACK HOLES BY THE TIDAL DISRUPTION OF STARS: THE IMPORTANCE OF THE IMPACT PARAMETER AND STELLAR STRUCTURE (2012, background): “While previous numerical studies have considered the effect of varying γ on Ṁ (t)(Rosswog et al. 2009; Lodato et al. 2009; Ramirez-Ruiz & Rosswog 2009), the present work is the first to explore the effect of varying β on Ṁ (t) in cases ranging from no mass loss to deeply penetrating encounters4.”
Rates of stellar tidal disruption as probes of the supermassive black hole mass function (2014, background): “High-β disruptions of white dwarfs by intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) may also lead to a supernova-like transient powered by the radioactive decay of 56Ni in the ejecta (Rosswog et al. 2009).”
The quest for dual and binary supermassive black holes: A multi-messenger view (2019, background): “Note that these IMBH+WD encounters may also lead to GW radiation that might be detectable by LISA in the Local Group (Rosswog et al., 2009; Anninos et al., 2018).”
Astrophysical smooth particle hydrodynamics (2009, background): “, 2009), collisions between them (Rosswog et al., 2009; Raskin et al., 2009) and tidal disruptions of white dwarfs by black holes (Rosswog et al.”
Consequences of Strong Compression in Tidal Disruption Events (2012, background): “Analogous work has focused on the inspiral of a WD into an IMBH, where a similar signal could be generated by a violent disruption (Rosswog et al. 2009; Haas et al. 2012), or a longer lived GW signal could be accompanied by electromagnetic transients due to inspiral and stable mass transfer…”
ULTRA-BRIGHT OPTICAL TRANSIENTS ARE LINKED WITH TYPE Ic SUPERNOVAE (2010, background): “A tidal disruption of a C-rich star by a black hole (Rosswog et al. 2009; Soker et al. 2009), a Galactic WD-asteroid merger and a type Ia SN in a dense, C-rich wind produced by a companion star (Soker et al. 2009) were also proposed as alternative explanations.”
The long-term evolution of neutron star merger remnants – I. The impact of r-process nucleosynthesis (2013, background): “2 in Rosswog et al. (2009)), since the nuclear and hydrodynamic time-scales can differ by many orders of magnitude.”
GENERAL RELATIVISTIC HYDRODYNAMIC SIMULATION OF ACCRETION FLOW FROM A STELLAR TIDAL DISRUPTION (2015, background): “Angular momentum redistribution is accomplished by deflections at the shocks (Rosswog et al. (2009) also report a shock that appears to resemble shock 2 in its early stages and remark briefly that it redistributes angular momentum).”
PS1-10jh: THE DISRUPTION OF A MAIN-SEQUENCE STAR OF NEAR-SOLAR COMPOSITION (2013, background): “The thinness of the stream 4 Guillochon, Manukian, Ramirez-Ruiz is also noted in other hydrodynamical simulations in which the mass ratio is large (Rosswog et al. 2009; Hayasaki et al. 2013).”
SURFACE DETONATIONS IN DOUBLE DEGENERATE BINARY SYSTEMS TRIGGERED BY ACCRETION STREAM INSTABILITIES (2009, background): “…to be capable of exploding; other mechanisms include collisions between WDs in dense stellar environments such as the cores of globular clusters (Rosswog et al. 2009a), tidal encounters with moderately massive black holes (Rosswog et al. 2008, 2009b; Ramirez-Ruiz & Rosswog 2009), or as we are…”