paper

Suppression of stellar tidal disruption rates by anisotropic initial conditions

arXiv:1506.01717 · doi:10.1088/2041-8205/808/1/L5

Abstract

We compute the rates of capture of stars by supermassive black holes, using time-dependent Fokker--Planck equation with initial conditions that have a deficit of stars on low-angular-momentum orbits. One class of initial conditions has a gap in phase space created by a binary black hole, and the other has a globally tangentially-anisotropic velocity distribution. We find that for galactic nuclei that are younger than ~0.1 relaxation times, the flux of stars into the black hole is suppressed with respect to the steady-state value. This effect may substantially reduce the number of observable tidal disruption flares in galaxies with black hole masses M>10^7 Msun.

5 pages, 2 figures, accepted by ApJL

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