Evolution of Quasi-Periodic Eruptions in the post-TDE Accretion Disk Perturbed by an Orbiting Star

Abstract

Quasi-periodic eruptions (QPEs) are a recently discovered class of highly variable X-ray bursts originating in galactic nuclei. These high-amplitude bursts exhibit periodicity ranging from tens of minutes to several days. QPEs are also characterized by variable peak amplitudes that can vary by a factor of few. While multiple physical models have been proposed to explain QPE light curves, none can fully account for all the observed features. A possible connection between QPEs and tidal disruption events (TDEs) has been suggested, particularly due to the past optical/UV outbursts that can be traced back for several sources, the long-term decay in the continuum luminosity, and the soft, thermal-dominated X-ray spectrum. Our primary goal is to verify whether the long-term decrease in eruption amplitudes detected for some QPE sources is consistent with the accretion disk being formed following a TDE. In this work, we adopt a simplified extreme mass ratio inspiral (EMRI) scenario, where a Solar-type star orbits a supermassive black hole (SMBH) and collides with an accretion disk twice per orbit, generating eruptions. We assume a post-TDE disk that follows a temporal power-law decline in mass accretion ($\propto t^{-p}$, $p>0$). As our aim is to develop a toy-model scenario, we have used purely analytical methods without considering all intervening processes in their full generality. Indications are that (i) the observed long-term decline in QPE amplitudes can be reproduced if the first monitored epoch occurs years to a few decades after the tidal disruption, (ii) stellar mass loss caused by ablation can play an important role in the evolution of QPE amplitudes in systems with heavy main-sequence (MS) stars.

Accepted for publication in A&A journal; 13 pages, 7+4 figures, 4 tables

References in corpus (28)

• First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole
• First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole in the Center of the Milky Way
• Tidal Disruption Events
• X-ray Quasi-Periodic Eruptions from two previously quiescent galaxies
• A possible mechanism for multiple changing look phenomenon in Active Galactic Nuclei
• Quasi-periodic eruptions from impacts between the secondary and a rigidly precessing accretion disc in an extreme mass-ratio inspiral system
• GSN 069 -- A Tidal Disruption Near-Miss
• X-ray Quasi-periodic Eruptions driven by Star-Disc Collisions : Application to GSN069 and Probing the Spin of Massive Black Holes
• Repeating tidal disruptions in GSN 069: Long-term evolution and constraints on quasi-periodic eruptions' models
• Disc tearing: implications for black hole accretion and AGN variability
• Stellar transits across a magnetized accretion torus as a mechanism for plasmoid ejection
• Quasi-periodic eruptions from mildly eccentric unstable mass transfer in galactic nuclei
• Tormund's return: Hints of quasi-periodic eruption features from a recent optical tidal disruption event
• Quasi-Periodic Erupters: A Stellar Mass-Transfer Model for the Radiation
• A disk instability model for the quasi-periodic eruptions of GSN 069
• Alive and kicking: A new QPE phase in GSN 069 revealing a quiescent luminosity threshold for QPEs
• Modified models of radiation pressure instability in application to 10, 10${}^5$, and 10${}^7$ $M_{\odot }$ accreting black holes
• Evidence of a tidal disruption event in GSN 069 from the abnormal carbon and nitrogen abundance ratio
• A Case for a Binary Black Hole System Revealed via Quasi-Periodic Outflows
• Light Curves of Partial Tidal Disruption Events
• Alive but Barely Kicking: News from 3+ years of Swift and XMM-Newton X-ray Monitoring of Quasi-Periodic Eruptions from eRO-QPE1
• SRG/eROSITA No. 5: Discovery of quasi-periodic eruptions every ~3.7 days from a galaxy at z>0.1
• QPEs from EMRI Debris Streams Impacting Accretion Disks in Galactic Nuclei
• Time-resolved Hubble Space Telescope UV observations of an X-ray quasi-periodic eruption source
• The mass fallback rate of the debris in relativistic stellar tidal disruption events
• Ultraviolet Spectral Evidence for Ansky as a Slowly Evolving Featureless Tidal Disruption Event with Quasiperiodic Eruptions
• Discovery of crested quasi-periodic eruptions following the most luminous SRG/eROSITA tidal disruption event
• Red giant - jet collisions in galactic nuclei I: 3D hydrodynamical model of a few stellar orbits