Micro Tidal Disruption Events in Active Galactic Nuclei

Abstract

Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) can act as black hole assembly lines, funneling some of the stellar-mass black holes from the vicinity of the galactic center into the inner plane of the AGN disk where the black holes can merge through dynamical friction and gravitational wave emission. Here, we show that stars near the galactic center are also brought into the AGN disk, where they can be tidally disrupted by the stellar-mass black holes in the disk. Such micro-tidal disruption events (micro-TDEs) could be useful probe of stellar interaction with the AGN disk. We find that micro-TDEs in AGNs occur at a rate of $\sim 170$ Gpc${}^{-3}$yr${}^{-1}$. Their cleanest observational probe may be the detection of tidal disruption in AGNs by heavy supermassive black holes ($M_{\bullet }\gtrsim 10^8$ M${}_{\odot }$) so that cannot tidally disrupt solar-type stars. We discuss two such TDE candidates observed to date (ASASSN-15lh and ZTF19aailpwl).

7 pages, 1 figure

References in corpus (23)

• The Zwicky Transient Facility: Science Objectives
• Starbursts near supermassive black holes: young stars in the Galactic Center, and gravitational waves in LISA band
• The Superluminous Transient ASASSN-15lh as a Tidal Disruption Event from a Kerr Black Hole
• AGN Disks Harden the Mass Distribution of Stellar-mass Binary Black Hole Mergers
• On the mass and luminosity functions of tidal disruption flares: rate suppression due to black hole event horizons
• Formation Rate of Extreme Mass Ratio Inspirals in Active Galactic Nuclei
• Orbital Evolution of Equal-mass Eccentric Binaries due to a Gas Disk: Eccentric Inspirals and Circular Outspirals
• A new class of flares from accreting supermassive black holes
• Black hole masses of tidal disruption event host galaxies II
• Black Hole Formation in the Lower Mass Gap through Mergers and Accretion in AGN Disks
• Electromagnetic Signatures of Relativistic Explosions in AGN Disks
• Outflow Bubbles from Compact Binary Mergers Embedded in Active Galactic Nuclei: Cavity Formation and the Impact on Electromagnetic Counterparts
• Black hole mergers of AGN origin in LIGO/Virgo's O1-O3a observing periods
• Accretion onto Stars in the Disks of Active Galactic Nuclei
• Stellar Evolution in the Disks of Active Galactic Nuclei Produces Rapidly Rotating Massive Stars
• Accretion-Induced Collapse of Neutron Stars in the Disks of Active Galactic Nuclei
• Thermonuclear Explosions and Accretion-induced Collapses of White Dwarfs in Active Galactic Nucleus Accretion Disks
• Partial tidal disruption events by stellar mass black holes: gravitational instability of stream and impact from remnant core
• ASASSN-15lh: a TDE about a maximally rotating $10^9{M}_{\odot }$ black hole
• From Neutrino- to Photon-Cooled in Three Years: Can Fallback Accretion Explain the X-ray Excess in GW170817?
• A maximum X-ray luminosity scale of disc-dominated tidal disruption events
• An upper observable black hole mass scale for tidal disruption events with thermal X-ray spectra
• Outflow-Driven Transients from the Birth of Binary Black Holes II: Primary-Induced Accretion Transients

Cited by in corpus (14)

• A light in the dark: searching for electromagnetic counterparts to black hole-black hole mergers in LIGO/Virgo O3 with the Zwicky Transient Facility
• Aligning Retrograde Nuclear Cluster Orbits with an Active Galactic Nucleus Accretion Disc
• The Role of Outflow Feedback on Accretion of Compact Objects in Accretion Disk of Active Galactic Nuclei
• Observable signatures of stellar-mass black holes in active galactic nuclei
• Prompt Emission of Gamma-Ray Bursts in the High-density Environment of Active Galactic Nuclei Accretion Disks
• Mapping the Outcomes of Stellar Evolution in the Disks of Active Galactic Nuclei
• Close Encounters of Tight Binary Stars with Stellar-mass Black Holes
• The effects of Time-Variable Absorption due to Gamma-Ray Bursts In Active Galactic Nuclei Accretion Disks
• Propagation of GRB Relativistic Jets in AGN Disks and Its Implication for GRB Detection
• High-energy Neutrino Productions from AGN Disk Transients Impacted by Circum-disk Medium
• Observational Properties of Thermal Emission from Relativistic Jets Embedded in AGN Disks
• Electromagnetic signatures of white dwarf collisions in AGN discs
• A Systematic Search for Active Galactic Nucleus Flares in ZTF Data Release 23
• Neutrino Astronomy at High Energies - An Experimental Review