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ABSTRACT A star destroyed by a supermassive black hole (SMBH) in a tidal disruption event (TDE) enables the study of SMBHs. We propose that the distance within which a star is completely destroyed by an SMBH, defined rt,c, is accurately estimated by equating the SMBH tidal field (including numerical factors) to the maximum gravitational field in the star. We demonstrate that this definition accurately reproduces the critical βc = rt/rt,c, where rt = R⋆(M•/M⋆)1/3 is the standard tidal radius with R⋆ and M⋆ the stellar radius and mass, and M• the SMBH mass, for multiple stellar progenitors at various ages, and can be reasonably approximated by βc ≃ [ρc/(4ρ⋆)]1/3, where ρc (ρ⋆) is the central (average) stellar density. We also calculate the peak fallback rate and time at which the fallback rate peaks, finding excellent agreement with hydrodynamical simulations, and also suggest that the partial disruption radius – the distance at which any mass is successfully liberated from the star – is βpartial ≃ 4−1/3 ≃ 0.6. For given stellar and SMBH populations, this model yields, e.g. the fraction of partial TDEs, the peak luminosity distribution of TDEs, and the number of directly captured stars.
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Cooling Envelope Model for Tidal Disruption Events
Abstract We present a toy model for the thermal optical/UV/X-ray emission from tidal disruption events (TDEs). Motivated by recent hydrodynamical simulations, we assume that the debris streams promptly and rapidly circularize (on the orbital period of the most tightly bound debris), generating a hot quasi-spherical pressure-supported envelope of radius R v ∼ 10 14 cm (photosphere radius ∼10 15 cm) surrounding the supermassive black hole (SMBH). As the envelope cools radiatively, it undergoes Kelvin–Helmholtz contraction R v ∝ t −1 , its temperature rising T eff ∝ t 1/2 while its total luminosity remains roughly constant; the optical luminosity decays as ν L ν ∝ R v 2 T eff ∝ t − 3 / 2 . Despite this similarity to the mass fallback rate M ̇ fb ∝ t − 5 / 3 , envelope heating from fallback accretion is subdominant compared to the envelope cooling luminosity except near optical peak (where they are comparable). Envelope contraction can be delayed by energy injection from accretion from the inner envelope onto the SMBH in a regulated manner, leading to a late-time flattening of the optical/X-ray light curves, similar to those observed in some TDEs. Eventually, as the envelope contracts to near the circularization radius, the SMBH accretion rate rises to its maximum, in tandem with the decreasing optical luminosity. This cooling-induced (rather than circularization-induced) delay of up to several hundred days may account for the delayed onset of thermal X-rays, late-time radio flares, and high-energy neutrino generation, observed in some TDEs. We compare the model predictions to recent TDE light-curve correlation studies, finding both agreement and points of tension.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2009255
- PAR ID:
- 10437138
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- The Astrophysical Journal Letters
- Volume:
- 937
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2041-8205
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- L12
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract The ∼100 tidal disruption events (TDEs) observed so far exhibit a wide range of emission properties both at peak and over their lifetimes. Some TDEs radiate predominantly at X-ray energies, while others radiate chiefly at UV and optical wavelengths. While the peak luminosities across TDEs show distinct properties, the evolutionary behavior can also vary between TDEs with similar peak emission properties. In particular, for optical TDEs, while their UV and optical emissions decline somewhat following the fallback pattern, some events can greatly rebrighten in X-rays at late time. In this Letter, we conduct three-dimensional general relativistic radiation magnetohydrodynamics simulations of TDE accretion disks at varying accretion rates in the regime of super-Eddington accretion. We make use of Monte Carlo radiative transfer simulations to calculate the reprocessed spectra at various inclinations and at different evolutionary stages. We confirm the unified model proposed by Dai et al., which predicts that the observed emission largely depends on the viewing angle of the observer with respect to the disk orientation. Furthermore, we find that disks with higher accretion rates have elevated wind and disk densities, which increases the reprocessing of the high-energy radiation and thus generally augments the optical-to-X-ray flux ratio along a particular viewing angle. This implies that at later times, as the accretion level declines, we expect that more X-rays will leak out along intermediate viewing angles. Such dynamical model for TDEs can provide a natural explanation for the diversity in the emission properties observed in TDEs at peak and along their temporal evolution.more » « less
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ac90ba
