Tidal Disruption of a Main-sequence Star by an Intermediate-mass Black Hole: A Bright Decade

Jin-Hong Chen, Rong-Feng Shen
2018 Astrophysical Journal  
There has been suggestive evidence of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs; 10^3-5 M_sun) existing in some globular clusters (GCs) and dwarf galaxies, but IMBHs as a population remain elusive. As a main-sequence star passes too close by an IMBH it might be tidally captured and disrupted. We study the long-term accretion and observational consequence of such tidal disruption events. The disruption radius is hundreds to thousands of the BH's Schwarzschild radius, so the circularization of the
more » ... ing-back debris stream is very inefficient due to weak general relativity effects. Due to this and a high mass fallback rate, the bound debris initially goes through a 10 yr long super-Eddington accretion phase. The photospheric emission of the outflow ejected during this phase dominates the observable radiation and peaks in the UV/optical bands with a luminosity of 10^42 erg/s. After the accretion rate drops below the Eddington rate, the bolometric luminosity follows the conventional t^-5/3 power-law decay, and X-rays from the inner accretion disk start to be seen. Modeling the newly reported IMBH tidal disruption event candidate 3XMM J2150-0551, we find a general consistency between the data and predictions. The search for these luminous, long-term events in GCs and nearby dwarf galaxies could unveil the IMBH population.
doi:10.3847/1538-4357/aadfda fatcat:jcoqole7czaftb3beysxeqzk7a