Supermassive Stars in Quasar Disks

By J. Goodman, Jonathan C. Tan. 2003

172 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We propose that supermassive stars may form in quasar accretion disks, and we discuss possible observational consequences. The structure and stability of very massive stars are reviewed. Because of high accretion rates, quasar disks are massive, and the fringes of their optically luminous parts are prone to fragmentation. Starting from a few hundred solar masses, a dominant fragment will grow to the isolation mass, which is a significant fraction of the disk mass, more quickly than the fragment contracts onto the stellar main sequence. A gap will form in the disk, and the star will migrate inward on the accretion timescale, which is comparable to the star's main-sequence lifetime. By interrupting the gas supply to the inner disk, the gap may temporarily dim and redden the quasar. The final stages of stellar migration will be a strong source of low-frequency gravitational waves.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ec68e30d9e914a0af0960343d1f68b13ba2bf182

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Citations in the corpus

Alignment of the Spins of Supermassive Black Holes Prior to Coalescence (2007, methodology): “The accretion onto the holes is mediated by their nuclear accretion disks fed from the galactic scale gas disk at the Bondi rate, ṀBondi, as long as it does not exceed the Eddington rate, ṀEdd (Goodman & Tan 2004).”
Starbursts near supermassive black holes: young stars in the Galactic Centre, and gravitational waves in LISA band (2006, background): “Goodman and Tan (2004) have argued that a protostar accreting from the accretion disc will reach the isolation mass; see also Nayakshin and Cuadra (2005) and Nayakshin (2005).”
Intermediate mass black holes in AGN discs – I. Production and growth (2012, background): “…a population of stars and compact objects (collectively nuclear cluster objects, NCOs) that can migrate within and accrete from the disk (e.g. Ostriker 1983; Syer, Clarke & Rees 1991; Artymowicz et al. 1993a; Goodman & Tan 2004; Levin 2007; Nayakshin & Sunyaev 2007; McKernan et al. 2011a,b).”
CONSTRAINTS ON BLACK HOLE GROWTH, QUASAR LIFETIMES, AND EDDINGTON RATIO DISTRIBUTIONS FROM THE SDSS BROAD-LINE QUASAR BLACK HOLE MASS FUNCTION (2010, background): “Moreover, Goodman & Tan (2004) suggest that stars may also form in AGN accretion disks due to fragmentation in the outer edges of the disk.”
Mind Your Ps and Qs: The Interrelation between Period (P) and Mass-ratio (Q) Distributions of Binary Stars (2016, background): “Nevertheless, if the companion does not significantly migrate and instead opens a gap in the disk at intermediate separations, the growth of the companion is limited by the amount of mass in the disk within its Hill radius (Goodman & Tan 2004; Kratter & Matzner 2006).”
Radiative Feedback from Massive Black Holes in Elliptical Galaxies: AGN Flaring and Central Starburst Fueled by Recycled Gas (2007, background): “…pc, accretion onto the central SMBH is mediated by a small central disk within which additional significant star formation occurs (see, e.g., Goodman & Tan 2004; Tan& Blackman 2005; see also Kawata et al. 2007), and the remaining fraction of gas either is blown out in a broadline wind or is…”
Testing the locality of transport in self-gravitating accretion discs — II. The massive disc case (2003, background): “…recent work on the subject has focused on the issue of the conditions for disc fragmentation, especially in relation to the process of planet formation in protostellar discs (Boss 2002; Mayer et al. 2002; Rice et al. 2003b), or massive star formation in AGN discs (Levin 2003; Goodman & Tan 2004).”
Stellar Dynamics and Stellar Phenomena Near a Massive Black Hole (2017, background): “Stars that open a gap in the disk and migrate to its inner edge before exploding, will interrupt the gas supply and cause a transient dimming and reddening of the quasar (Goodman & Tan 2004) and ultimately be tidally disrupted.”
THE POPULATION OF VISCOSITY- AND GRAVITATIONAL WAVE-DRIVEN SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLE BINARIES AMONG LUMINOUS ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI (2009, methodology): “Here, we collect and summarize the most important formulae describing the interaction between a binary and the accretion 8 It appears that Goodman & Tan (2004) contain the following typographical errors: p ∝ α4/5μ−4/5M4/57 r−18/53 in their Equation (20) should be p ∝ α−4/5μ4/5M−4/57 r−18/53 , and…”
Radiation Pressure-supported Starburst Disks and Active Galactic Nucleus Fueling (2005, background): “But beyond this, the properties of star formation under these conditions are poorly understood (Goodman & Tan 2004 argue that the disk will form supermassive stars).”
Investigating fragmentation conditions in self-gravitating accretion discs (2005, background): “This process has been suggested as a mechanism both for forming gaseous planets in protostellar discs (Kuiper 1951; Boss 1998; Mayer et al. 2004), and for forming stars in active galactic discs (Goodman & Tan 2004).”
Rapid and Bright Stellar-mass Binary Black Hole Mergers in Active Galactic Nuclei (2016, background): “Further, massive stars can form near galactic centers, e.g., in AGN disks (Goodman & Tan 2004; Levin 2007; McKernan et al. 2012; Stone et al. 2016), providing an additional source of black holes to the nucleus.”
Fragmentation of massive protostellar discs (2006, background): “Assuming that the fragment has comparable dimension azimuthally, the corresponding mass scale is (Goodman & Tan 2004) Mfrag = λ 2Σ = 4π Ω c3ad G Q, (38) i.e., roughly the amount of mass accreted in 2Q orbits.”