Tidal disruption by extreme mass ratio binaries and application to ASASSN-15lh

Abstract

Tidal disruption events (TDEs) observed in massive galaxies with inferred central black hole masses $M_h>10^8{M}_{\odot }$ are presumptive candidates for TDEs by lower mass secondaries in binary systems. We use hydrodynamic simulations to quantify the characteristics of such TDEs, focusing on extreme mass ratio binaries and mpc separations where the debris stream samples the binary potential. The simulations are initialised with disruption trajectories from 3-body integrations of stars with parabolic orbits with respect to the binary center of mass. The most common outcome is found to be the formation of an unbound debris stream, with either weak late-time accretion or no accretion at all. A substantial fraction of streams remain bound, however, and these commonly yield structured fallback rate curves that exhibit multiple peaks or sharp drops. We apply our results to the superluminous supernova candidate ASASSN-15lh and show that its features, including its anomalous rebrightening at $\sim 100$ days after detection, are consistent with the tidal disruption of a star by a supermassive black hole in a binary system.

arXiv comment10 pages, 3 figures; updated to include revisions from referee; fixed figures

References in corpus (65)

• The Man Behind the Curtain: X-rays Drive the UV through NIR Variability in the 2013 AGN Outburst in NGC 2617
• Revisiting the Scaling Relations of Black Hole Masses and Host Galaxy Properties
• The Palomar Transient Factory: System Overview, Performance and First Results
• SPLASH: An interactive visualisation tool for Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics simulations
• The Pan-STARRS1 Surveys
• Discovery of a binary AGN in the ultraluminous infrared galaxy NGC 6240 using Chandra
• A relativistic jetted outburst from a massive black hole fed by a tidally disrupted star
• Discovery of the Onset of Rapid Accretion by a Dormant Massive Black Hole
• Hydrogen-poor superluminous stellar explosions
• 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
• Optical Flares from the Tidal Disruption of Stars by Massive Black Holes
• An ultraviolet-optical flare from the tidal disruption of a helium-rich stellar core
• A Continuum of H- to He-Rich Tidal Disruption Candidates With a Preference for E+A Galaxies
• A Compact Supermassive Binary Black Hole System
• The Birth of a Relativistic Outflow in the Unusual γ-ray Transient Swift J164449.3+573451
• Massive black hole binary mergers within sub-pc scale gas discs
• An Eccentric Circumbinary Accretion Disk and the Detection of Binary Massive Black Holes
• Rates of Stellar Tidal Disruption as Probes of the Supermassive Black Hole Mass Function
• Stellar disruption by a supermassive black hole: is the light curve really proportional to $t^{-5/3}$?
• The Centers of Early-Type Galaxies with HST. V. New WFPC2 Photometry
• An extremely luminous panchromatic outburst from the nucleus of a distant galaxy
• General Relativistic Hydrodynamic Simulation of Accretion Flow from a Stellar Tidal Disruption
• PS1-10jh: The Disruption of a Main-Sequence Star of Near-Solar Composition
• A Bright Year for Tidal Disruptions?
• ASASSN-14ae: A Tidal Disruption Event at 200 Mpc
• A Population of Short-Period Variable Quasars from PTF as Supermassive Black Hole Binary Candidates
• Optical Appearance of the Debris of a Star Disrupted by a Massive Black Hole
• The Superluminous Transient ASASSN-15lh as a Tidal Disruption Event from a Kerr Black Hole
• Massive Black Hole Binary Mergers in Dynamical Galactic Environments
• Consequences of Strong Compression in Tidal Disruption Events
• Disc formation from tidal disruptions of stars on eccentric orbits by Schwarzschild black holes
• The X-ray through Optical Fluxes and Line Strengths of Tidal Disruption Events
• ASASSN-15lh: A Highly Super-Luminous Supernova
• Inspiralling Supermassive Black Holes: A New Signpost for Galaxy Mergers
• Tidal disruption rate of stars by spinning supermassive black holes
• Circularization of Tidally Disrupted Stars around Spinning Supermassive Black Holes
• Finite, Intense Accretion Bursts from Tidal Disruption of Stars on Bound Orbits
• Swift J1644+57 gone MAD: the case for dynamically-important magnetic flux threading the black hole in a jetted tidal disruption event
• A Dark Year for Tidal Disruption Events
• The Extreme Hosts of Extreme Supernovae
• Radio transients from stellar tidal disruption by massive black holes
• Binary Black Hole Accretion Flows in Merged Galactic Nuclei
• Hyperaccretion during tidal disruption events: weakly bound debris envelopes and jets
• iPTF16fnl: a faint and fast tidal disruption event in an E+A galaxy
• The tidal disruption rate in dense galactic cusps containing a supermassive binary black hole
• Enhanced tidal disruption rates from massive black hole binaries
• Magnetohydrodynamical simulations of a tidal disruption in general relativity
• Variability in tidal disruption events: gravitationally unstable streams
• The fine line between total and partial tidal disruption events
• Tidal disruption events from supermassive black hole binaries
• Interruption of Tidal Disruption Flares By Supermassive Black Hole Binaries
• A Systematic Search for Periodically Varying Quasars in Pan-STARRS1: An Extended Baseline Test in Medium Deep Survey Field MD09
• X-rays from the location of the Bactrian Transient ASASSN-15lh
• Post-periapsis pancakes: sustenance for self-gravity in tidal disruption events
• GRB 110328A/Swift J164449.3+573451: The Tidal Obliteration of a Deeply Plunging Star?
• The Unexpected, Long-Lasting, UV Rebrightening of the Super-Luminous Supernova ASASSN-15lh
• A fast recursive coordinate bisection tree for neighbour search and gravity
• Unbound Debris Streams and Remnants Resulting From the Tidal Disruptions of Stars by Supermassive Black Holes
• The Zwicky Transient Facility
• Extreme Supernova Models for the Superluminous Transient ASASSN-15lh
• Tidal Disruption Events by a Massive Black Hole Binary
• ASASSN-15lh: A Superluminous Ultraviolet Rebrightening Observed by Swift and Hubble
• Lighthouse in the Dust: Infrared Echoes of Periodic Emission from Massive Black Hole Binaries
• Viscous boundary layers of radiation-dominated, relativistic jets. II. The free-streaming jet model
• Circumbinary discs from tidal disruption events

Cited by in corpus (20)

• Electromagnetic Counterparts to Massive Black Hole Mergers
• Stellar Tidal Disruption Events in General Relativity
• Distinguishing Tidal Disruption Events from Impostors
• X-ray flares from the stellar tidal disruption by a candidate supermassive black hole binary
• The Process of Stellar Tidal Disruption by Supermassive Black Holes. The first pericenter passage
• The supermassive black hole coincident with the luminous transient ASASSN-15lh
• The Eccentric Nature of Eccentric Tidal Disruption Events
• Tidal disruption events from massive black hole binaries: predictions for ongoing and future surveys
• Photospheric Velocity Gradients and Ejecta Masses of Hydrogen-poor Superluminous Supernovae -- Proxies for Distinguishing between Fast and Slow Events
• Tidal disruption of stars in a supermassive black hole binary system: the influence of orbital properties on fallback and accretion rates
• Gravitational interactions of stars with supermassive black hole binaries. I. Tidal disruption events
• Stellar binaries incident on supermassive black hole binaries: implications for double tidal disruption events, calcium-rich transients, and hypervelocity stars
• Gravitational interactions of stars with supermassive black hole binaries - II. Hypervelocity stars
• Constraining the Stellar Mass Function from the Deficiency of Tidal Disruption Flares in the Nuclei of Massive Galaxies
• The Influence of Black Hole Binarity on Tidal Disruption Events
• AT2018fyk: Candidate Tidal Disruption Event by a (Super)massive Black Hole Binary
• Circumbinary discs from tidal disruption events
• The cosmological distribution of compact object mergers from dynamical interactions with SMBH binaries
• Tidal Disruption Events by Compact Supermassive Black Hole Binaries
• What causes the fragmentation of debris streams in TDEs?