A bright electromagnetic counterpart to extreme mass ratio inspirals

Abstract

The extreme mass ratio inspiral (EMRI), defined as a stellar-mass compact object inspiraling into a supermassive black hole (SMBH), has been widely argued to be a low-frequency gravitational wave (GW) source. EMRIs providing accurate measurements of black hole mass and spin, are one of the primary interests for Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). However, it is usually believed that there are no electromagnetic (EM) counterparts to EMRIs. Here we show a new formation channel of EMRIs with tidal disruption flares as EM counterparts. In this scenario, flares can be produced from the tidal stripping of the helium (He) envelope of a massive star by an SMBH. The left compact core of the massive star will evolve into an EMRI. We find that, under certain initial eccentricity and semimajor axis, the GW frequency of the inspiral can enter LISA band within 10 $\sim$ 20 years, which makes the tidal disruption flare an EM precursor to EMRI. Although the event rate is just $2\times 10^{-4}\mathrm{Gp}{\mathrm{c}}^{-3}\mathrm{y}{\mathrm{r}}^{-1}$, this association can not only improve the localization accuracy of LISA and help to find the host galaxy of EMRI, but also serve as a new GW standard siren for cosmology.

7 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in ApJL

References in corpus (5)

• GW170817: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Neutron Star Inspiral
• Intermediate and Extreme Mass-Ratio Inspirals -- Astrophysics, Science Applications and Detection using LISA
• An ultraviolet-optical flare from the tidal disruption of a helium-rich stellar core
• Stellar disruption by a supermassive black hole: is the light curve really proportional to $t^{-5/3}$?
• Calibration of gamma-ray bursts luminosity correlations using gravitational waves as standard sirens

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• A model for the possible connection between tidal disruption event and quasi-periodic eruption in GSN 069
• Mass-gap extreme mass ratio inspirals
• Periodic orbits and their gravitational wave radiations around the Schwarzschild-MOG black hole
• Testing gravity with Extreme-Mass-Ratio Inspirals
• Improving the Cosmological Constraints by Inferring the Formation Channel of Extreme-mass-ratio Inspirals
• Influence of mass-ratio corrections in extreme-mass-ratio inspirals for testing general relativity
• Impact of mass transfer on the orbital evolution of a white dwarf close to an intermediate-mass black hole
• Tidal capture and repeating partial tidal disruption events of giant stars