Wind-reprocessed transients from stellar-mass black hole Tidal Disruption Events
Abstract
Tidal disruptions of stars by stellar-mass black holes are expected to occur frequently in dense star clusters. Building upon previous studies that performed hydrodynamic simulations of these encounters, we explore the formation and long-term evolution of the thick, super-Eddington accretion disks formed. We build a disk model that includes fallback of material from the tidal disruption, accretion onto the black hole, and disk mass losses through winds launched in association with the super-Eddington flow. We demonstrate that bright transients are expected when radiation from the central engine powered by accretion onto the black hole is reprocessed at large radii by the optically-thick disk wind. By combining hydrodynamic simulations of these disruption events with our disk + wind model, we compute light curves of these wind-reprocessed transients for a wide range of stellar masses and encounter penetration depths. We find typical peak bolometric luminosities of roughly $10^{41}\!-\!10^{44}\,$erg s-1 (depending mostly on accretion physics parameters) and temperatures of roughly $10^5\!-\!10^6\,$K, suggesting peak emission in the ultraviolet/blue bands. We predict all-sky surveys such as the Vera Rubin Observatory and ULTRASAT will detect up to thousands of these events per year in dense star clusters out to distances of several Gpc.
- Publication:
-
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Pub Date:
- October 2023
- DOI:
- 10.1093/mnras/stad2239
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2305.08905
- Bibcode:
- 2023MNRAS.524.6358K
- Keywords:
-
- transients: tidal disruption events;
- stars: black holes;
- globular clusters: general;
- hydrodynamics;
- accretion discs;
- Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena;
- Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies;
- Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- 16 Pages, 13 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRAS