A study of stellar debris dynamics during a tidal disruption event

2020 
The number of observed tidal disruption events is increasing rapidly with the advent of new surveys. Thus, it is becoming increasingly important to improve TDE models using different stellar and orbital parameters. We study the dynamical behaviour of tidal disruption events produced by a massive black hole like Sgr A* by changing different initial orbital parameters, taking into account the observed orbits of S stars. Investigating different types of orbits and penetration factors is important since their variations lead to different timescales of the tidal disruption event debris dynamics, making mechanisms such as self-crossing and pancaking act strongly or weakly, thus affecting the circularisation and accretion disk formation. We have performed smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations. Each simulation consists in modelling the star with $10^5$ particles, and the density profile is described by a polytrope with $\gamma$ = 5/3. The massive black hole is modelled with a generalised post-Newtonian potential, which takes into account relativistic effects of the Schwarzschild space-time. Our analyses find that mass return rate distributions of solar-like stars and S-like stars with same eccentricity have similar durations, but S-like stars have higher mass return rate, as expected due to their larger mass. Regarding debris circularisation, we identify four types of evolution, related to the mechanisms and processes involved during circularisation: in type 1 the debris does not circularise efficiently, hence a disk is not formed or is formed after relatively long time; in type 2 the debris slowly circularises and eventually forms a disk with no debris falling back; in type 3 the debris relatively quickly circularises and forms a disk while there is still debris falling back; finally, in type 4 the debris quickly and efficiently circularises, mainly through self-crossings and shocks, and forms a disk with no debris falling back. Finally, we find that the standard relation of circularisation radius $r_{\rm circ} = 2r_{\rm t}$ holds only for $\beta = 1$ and eccentricities close to parabolic.
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