arXiv subjects

Xian Chen

Publications and source records attributed to Xian Chen.

129 records · Page 8Linked to original sources

arXiv2010

Tidal stellar disruptions by massive black hole pairs: II. Decaying binaries

Tidal stellar disruptions have traditionally been discussed as a probe of the single, massive black holes (MBHs) that are dormant in the nuclei of galaxies. In Chen et al. (2009), we used numerical scattering experiments to show that three-body interactions between bound stars in a stellar cusp and a non-evolving "hard" MBH binary will also produce a burst of tidal disruptions, caused by a combination of the secular "Kozai effect" and by close resonant encounters with the secondary hole. Here we derive basic analytical scalings of the stellar disruption rates with the system parameters, assess the relative importance of the Kozai and resonant encounter mechanisms as a function of time, discuss the impact of general relativistic (GR) and extended stellar cusp effects, and develop a hybrid model to self-consistently follow the shrinking of an MBH binary in a stellar background, including slingshot ejections and tidal disruptions. In the case of a fiducial binary with primary hole mass M_1=10^7\msun and mass ratio q=M_2/M_1=1/81, embedded in an isothermal cusp, we derive a stellar disruption rate \dot{N_*} ~ 0.2/yr lasting ~ 3X10^5 yr. This rate is 3 orders of magnitude larger than the corresponding value for a single MBH fed by two-body relaxation, confirming our previous findings. For q<<0.01, the Kozai/chaotic effect could be quenched due to GR/cusp effects by an order of magnitude, but even in this case the stellar-disruption rate is still two orders of magnitude larger than that given by standard relaxation processes around a single MBH. Our results suggest that >~10% of the tidal-disruption events may originate in MBH binaries.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2009

Interruption of Tidal Disruption Flares By Supermassive Black Hole Binaries

Supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) are products of galaxy mergers, and are important in testing Lambda cold dark matter cosmology and locating gravitational-wave-radiation sources. A unique electromagnetic signature of SMBHBs in galactic nuclei is essential in identifying the binaries in observations from the IR band through optical to X-ray. Recently, the flares in optical, UV, and X-ray caused by supermassive black holes (SMBHs) tidally disrupting nearby stars have been successfully used to observationally probe single SMBHs in normal galaxies. In this Letter, we investigate the accretion of the gaseous debris of a tidally disrupted star by a SMBHB. Using both stability analysis of three-body systems and numerical scattering experiments, we show that the accretion of stellar debris gas, which initially decays with time $\propto t^{-5/3}$, would stop at a time $T_{\rm tr} \simeq ηT_{\rm b}$. Here, $η\sim0.25$ and $T_{\rm b}$ is the orbital period of the SMBHB. After a period of interruption, the accretion recurs discretely at time $T_{\rm r} \simeq ξT_b$, where $ξ\sim 1$. Both $η$ and $ξ$ sensitively depend on the orbital parameters of the tidally disrupted star at the tidal radius and the orbit eccentricity of SMBHB. The interrupted accretion of the stellar debris gas gives rise to an interrupted tidal flare, which could be used to identify SMBHBs in non-active galaxies in the upcoming transient surveys.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2007

Tidal Disruption of Stellar Objects by Hard Supermassive Black Hole Binaries

Supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) are expected by the hierarchical galaxy formation model in $Λ$CDM cosmology. There is some evidence in the literature for SMBHBs in AGNs, but there are few observational constraints on the evolution of SMBHBs in inactive galaxies and gas-poor mergers. On the theoretical front, it is unclear how long is needed for a SMBHB in a typical galaxy to coalesce. In this paper we investigate the tidal interaction between stars and binary BHs and calculate the tidal disruption rates of stellar objects by the BH components of binary. We derive the interaction cross sections between SMBHBs and stars from intensive numerical scattering experiments with particle number $\sim10^7$ and calculate the tidal disruption rates by both single and binary BHs for a sample of realistic galaxy models, taking into account the general relativistic effect and the loss cone refilling because of two-body interaction. We estimate the frequency of tidal flares for different types of galaxies using the BH mass function in the literature. We find that because of the three-body slingshot effect, the tidal disruption rate in SMBHB system is more than one order of magnitude smaller than that in single SMBH system. The difference is more significant in less massive galaxies and does not depend on detailed stellar dynamical processes. Our calculations suggest that comparisons of the calculated tidal disruption rates for both single and binary BHs and the surveys of X-ray or UV flares at galactic centers could tell us whether most SMBHs in nearby galaxies are single and whether the SMBHBs formed in gas-poor galaxy mergers coalesce rapidly.

astro-ph↗