English

Simulating the tidal disruption of stars by stellar-mass black holes using moving-mesh hydrodynamics

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2024-05-08 v2 Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

Abstract

In the centers of dense star clusters, close encounters between stars and compact objects are likely to occur. We study tidal disruption events of main-sequence (MS) stars by stellar-mass black holes (termed μ\muTDEs), which can shed light on the processes occurring in these clusters, including being an avenue in the mass growth of stellar-mass BHs. Using the moving-mesh hydrodynamics code \texttt{AREPO}, we perform a suite of hydrodynamics simulations of partial μ\muTDEs of realistic, \texttt{MESA}-generated MS stars by varying the initial mass of the star (0.5M0.5\,{\rm M}_{\rm \odot} and 1M1\,{\rm M}_{\rm \odot}), the age of the star (zero-age, middle-age and terminal-age), the mass of the black hole (10M10\,{\rm M}_{\rm \odot} and 40M40\,{\rm M}_{\rm \odot}) and the impact parameter (yielding almost no mass loss to full disruption). We then examine the dependence of the masses, spins, and orbital parameters of the partially disrupted remnant on the initial encounter parameters. We find that the mass lost from a star decreases exponentially with increasing distance of approach and that a 1M1\,{\rm M}_{\rm \odot} star loses lesser mass than a 0.5M0.5\,{\rm M}_{\rm \odot}. Moreover, a more evolved star is less susceptible to mass loss. Tidal torques at the closest approach spin up the remnant by factors of 10210^2--10410^4 depending on the impact parameter. The remnant star can be bound (eccentric) or unbound (hyperbolic) to the black hole: hyperbolic orbits occur when the star's central density concentration is relatively low and the black hole-star mass ratio is high, which is the case for the disruption of a 0.5M0.5\,{\rm M}_{\rm \odot} star. Finally, we provide best-fit analytical formulae for a range of parameters that can be incorporated into cluster codes to model star-black hole interaction more accurately.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2310.14852,
  title  = {Simulating the tidal disruption of stars by stellar-mass black holes using moving-mesh hydrodynamics},
  author = {Pavan Vynatheya and Taeho Ryu and Ruediger Pakmor and Selma E. de Mink and Hagai B. Perets},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2310.14852},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

Accepted for publication by A&A (with some revisions)