Eccentricity Boost of Stars Around Shrinking Massive Black Hole Binaries

Abstract

Based on a simple geometrical approach, we analyze the evolution of the Kozai-Lidov mechanism for stars around shrinking massive black hole binaries on circular orbits. We find that, due to a peculiar bifurcation pattern induced by the Newtonian potential of stellar clusters, the orbit of stars could become highly eccentric. This transition occurs abruptly for stars with small initial eccentricities. Our approach would be also useful for studying the Kozai-Lidov mechanism in various astrophysical contexts.

8 pages, 3 figures, revised

References in corpus (7)

• Mergers and Obliquities in Stellar Triples
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• Rapid Eccentricity Oscillations and the Mergers of Compact Objects in Hierarchical Triples
• The final-parsec problem in non-spherical galaxies revisited
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Cited by in corpus (4)

• The Combined Effects of Two-Body Relaxation Processes and the Eccentric Kozai-Lidov Mechanism on the EMRI Rate
• Secular dynamics of binaries in stellar clusters I: general formulation and dependence on cluster potential
• Secular dynamics of binaries in stellar clusters -- III. Doubly-averaged dynamics in the presence of general relativistic precession
• Probabilistic eccentricity bifurcation for stars around shrinking massive black hole binaries