Simulations of the tidal interaction and mass transfer of a star in an eccentric orbit around an intermediate-mass black hole: the case of HLX-1

Edwin van der Helm, Simon Portegies Zwart, Onno Pols

The X-ray source HLX-1 near the spiral galaxy ESO 243-49 is currently the best intermediate-mass black hole candidate. It has a peak bolometric luminosity of $10^{42}$ erg s${}^{-1}$…