Binary-induced collapse of a compact, collisionless cluster
Abstract
We improve and extend Shapiro's model of a relativistic, compact object which is stable in isolation but is driven dynamically unstable by the tidal field of a binary companion. Our compact object consists of a dense swarm of test particles moving in randomly-oriented, initially circular, relativistic orbits about a nonrotating black hole. The binary companion is a distant, slowly inspiraling point mass. The tidal field of the companion is treated as a small perturbation on the background Schwarzschild geometry near the hole; the resulting metric is determined by solving the perturbation equations of Regge and Wheeler and Zerilli in the quasi-static limit. The perturbed spacetime supports Bekenstein's conjecture that the horizon area of a near-equilibrium black hole is an adiabatic invariant. We follow the evolution of the system and confirm that gravitational collapse can be induced in a compact collisionless cluster by the tidal field of a binary companion.
Cite
@article{arxiv.gr-qc/9904011,
title = {Binary-induced collapse of a compact, collisionless cluster},
author = {Matthew D. Duez and Eric T. Engelhard and John M. Fregeau and Kevin M. Huffenberger and Stuart L. Shapiro},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:gr-qc/9904011},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
9 Latex pages, 14 postscript figures