Why are Quasiperiodic Eruptions only Found in Low-Mass Galaxies?

Abstract

I consider the current sample of galaxy nuclei producing quasiperiodic eruptions (QPEs). If the quasiperiod results from the orbital motion of a star around the central black hole, the dearth of associated black hole masses $\gtrsim 10^6\msun$ places tight constraints on models. It disfavours those assuming wide orbits and small eccentricities, because there is ample volume within pericentre to allow significantly more massive holes in QPE systems than are currently observed. If instead the orbiting star is assumed to pass close to the black hole, the same lack of large black hole masses strongly suggests that the stellar orbits must be significantly eccentric, with $1-e\lesssim \mathrm{few}\times 10^{-2}$. This favours a tidal disruption near-miss picture where QPEs result from repeated accretion from an orbiting star (in practice a white dwarf) losing orbital angular momentum to gravitational radiation, even though this is not assumed in deriving the eccentricity constraint. Given the tight constraints resulting from the current small observed sample, attempts to find QPE systems in more massive galaxies are clearly important.

Accepted for MNRAS Letters

References in corpus (6)

• GSN 069 -- A Tidal Disruption Near-Miss
• Quasi--Periodic Eruptions from Galaxy Nuclei
• Evidence of a tidal disruption event in GSN 069 from the abnormal carbon and nitrogen abundance ratio
• Milli-Hertz Gravitational Wave Background Produced by Quasi-Periodic Eruptions
• Angular Momentum Transfer in QPEs from Galaxy Nuclei
• QPE or QPO? -- Quasiperiodic Activity in Low-Mass Galaxy Nuclei

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Alive but Barely Kicking: News from 3+ years of Swift and XMM-Newton X-ray Monitoring of Quasi-Periodic Eruptions from eRO-QPE1