arXiv subjects

James C. Lombardi Jr

Publications and source records attributed to James C. Lombardi Jr.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2023

Wind-Reprocessed Transients from Stellar-mass Black Hole Tidal Disruption Events

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 (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.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2021

Simulating a stellar contact binary merger -- I. Stellar models

We study the initial conditions of a common envelope (CE) event resulting in a stellar merger. A merger's dynamics could be understood through its light curve, but no synthetic light curve has yet been created for the full evolution. Using the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) code StarSmasher, we have created three-dimensional (3D) models of a 1.52 $M_\odot$ star that is a plausible donor in the V1309 Sco progenitor. The integrated total energy profiles of our 3D models match their initial one-dimensional (1D) models to within a 0.1 per cent difference in the top 0.1 $M_\odot$ of their envelopes. We have introduced a new method for obtaining radiative flux by linking intrinsically optically thick SPH particles to a single stellar envelope solution from a set of unique solutions. For the first time, we calculated our 3D models' effective temperatures to within a few per cent of the initial 1D models, and found a corresponding improvement in luminosity by a factor of $\gtrsim10^6$ compared to ray tracing. We let our highest resolution 3D model undergo Roche-lobe overflow with a 0.16 $M_\odot$ point-mass accretor ($P\simeq1.6$ days) and found a bolometric magnitude variability amplitude of $\sim0.3$ -- comparable to that of the V1309 Sco progenitor. Our 3D models are, in the top 0.1 $M_\odot$ of the envelope and in terms of total energy, the most accurate models so far of the V1309 Sco donor star. A dynamical simulation that uses the initial conditions we presented in this paper can be used to create the first ever synthetic CE evolution light curve.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2015

Testing common envelopes on double white dwarf binaries

The formation of a double white dwarf binary likely involves a common envelope (CE) event between a red giant and a white dwarf (WD) during the most recent episode of Roche lobe overflow mass transfer. We study the role of recombination energy with hydrodynamic simulations of such stellar interactions. We find that the recombination energy helps to expel the common envelope entirely, while if recombination energy is not taken into account, a significant fraction of the common envelope remains bound. We apply our numerical methods to constrain the progenitor system for WD 1101+364 -- a double WD binary that has well-measured mass ratio of $q=0.87\pm0.03$ and an orbital period of 0.145 days. Our best-fit progenitor for the pre-common envelope donor is a 1.5 $M_\odot$ red giant.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2015

Recombination energy in double white dwarf formation

In this Letter we investigate the role of recombination energy during a common envelope event. We confirm that taking this energy into account helps to avoid the formation of the circumbinary envelope commonly found in previous studies. For the first time, we can model a complete common envelope event, with a clean compact double white dwarf binary system formed at the end. The resulting binary orbit is almost perfectly circular. In addition to considering recombination energy, we also show that between 1/4 and 1/2 of the released orbital energy is taken away by the ejected material. We apply this new method to the case of the double-white dwarf system WD 1101+364, and we find that the progenitor system at the start of the common envelope event consisted of a $\sim1.5M_\odot$ red giant star in a $\sim 30$ day orbit with a white dwarf companion.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2011

Accretion disks around kicked black holes: Post-kick Dynamics

Numerical calculations of merging black hole binaries indicate that asymmetric emission of gravitational radiation can kick the merged black hole at up to thousands of km/s, and a number of systems have been observed recently whose properties are consistent with an active galactic nucleus containing a supermassive black hole moving with substantial velocity with respect to its broader accretion disk. We study here the effect of an impulsive kick delivered to a black hole on the dynamical evolution of its accretion disk using a smoothed particle hydrodynamics code, focusing attention on the role played by the kick angle with respect to the orbital angular momentum vector of the pre-kicked disk. We find that for more vertical kicks, for which the angle between the kick and the normal vector to the disk $θ\lesssim 30^\circ$, a gap remains present in the inner disk, in accordance with the prediction from an analytic collisionless Keplerian disk model, while for more oblique kicks with $θ\gtrsim 45^\circ$, matter rapidly accretes toward the black hole. There is a systematic trend for higher potential luminosities for more oblique kick angles for a given black hole mass, disk mass and kick velocity, and we find large amplitude oscillations in time in the case of a kick oriented $60^\circ$ from the vertical.

astro-ph.CO↗