Tidal Disruption on Stellar-mass Black Holes in Active Galactic Nuclei

Y. Yang; I. Bartos; G. Fragione; Z. Haiman; M. Kowalski; S. Márka; R. Perna; H. Tagawa

doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ac7c0b

Tidal Disruption on Stellar-mass Black Holes in Active Galactic Nuclei

Y. Yang, I. Bartos^*, G. Fragione, Z. Haiman, M. Kowalski, S. Márka, R. Perna, H. Tagawa

^*Corresponding author for this work

CIERA - Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) can funnel stars and stellar remnants from the vicinity of the galactic center into the inner plane of the AGN disk. Stars reaching this inner region can be tidally disrupted by the stellar-mass black holes in the disk. Such micro tidal disruption events (micro-TDEs) could be a useful probe of stellar interaction with the AGN disk. We find that micro-TDEs in AGNs occur at a rate of 1/4170 Gpc-3 yr-1. Their cleanest observational probe may be the electromagnetic detection of tidal disruption in AGNs by heavy supermassive black holes (M • 3 108 M ⊙) that cannot tidally disrupt solar-type stars. The reconstructed rate of such events from observations, nonetheless, appears to be much lower than our estimated micro-TDE rate. We discuss two such micro-TDE candidates observed to date (ASASSN-15lh and ZTF19aailpwl).

Original language	English (US)
Article number	L28
Journal	Astrophysical Journal Letters
Volume	933
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ac7c0b
State	Published - Jul 1 2022

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Astronomy and Astrophysics
Space and Planetary Science

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title = "Tidal Disruption on Stellar-mass Black Holes in Active Galactic Nuclei",

abstract = "Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) can funnel stars and stellar remnants from the vicinity of the galactic center into the inner plane of the AGN disk. Stars reaching this inner region can be tidally disrupted by the stellar-mass black holes in the disk. Such micro tidal disruption events (micro-TDEs) could be a useful probe of stellar interaction with the AGN disk. We find that micro-TDEs in AGNs occur at a rate of 1/4170 Gpc-3 yr-1. Their cleanest observational probe may be the electromagnetic detection of tidal disruption in AGNs by heavy supermassive black holes (M • 3 108 M ⊙) that cannot tidally disrupt solar-type stars. The reconstructed rate of such events from observations, nonetheless, appears to be much lower than our estimated micro-TDE rate. We discuss two such micro-TDE candidates observed to date (ASASSN-15lh and ZTF19aailpwl).",

author = "Y. Yang and I. Bartos and G. Fragione and Z. Haiman and M. Kowalski and S. M{\'a}rka and R. Perna and H. Tagawa",

note = "Funding Information: The authors would like to thank Bence Kocsis, Christopher Kochanek, and Sjoert van Velzen for useful suggestions. I.B. acknowledges the support of NSF under award PHY-1911796 and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. G.F. acknowledges support from NASA grant 80NSSC21K1722. ZH was supported by NASA grant NNX15AB19G and NSF grants AST-2006176 and AST-1715661. H.T. acknowledges support from the Grants-in-Aid for Basic Research by the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of Japan (HT:17H01102, 17H06360). R.P. acknowledges support from NSF award AST-2006839 and from NASA (Fermi) award 80NSSC20K1570. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.",

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AU - Yang, Y.

AU - Bartos, I.

AU - Fragione, G.

AU - Haiman, Z.

AU - Kowalski, M.

AU - Márka, S.

AU - Perna, R.

AU - Tagawa, H.

N1 - Funding Information: The authors would like to thank Bence Kocsis, Christopher Kochanek, and Sjoert van Velzen for useful suggestions. I.B. acknowledges the support of NSF under award PHY-1911796 and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. G.F. acknowledges support from NASA grant 80NSSC21K1722. ZH was supported by NASA grant NNX15AB19G and NSF grants AST-2006176 and AST-1715661. H.T. acknowledges support from the Grants-in-Aid for Basic Research by the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of Japan (HT:17H01102, 17H06360). R.P. acknowledges support from NSF award AST-2006839 and from NASA (Fermi) award 80NSSC20K1570. Publisher Copyright: © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.

PY - 2022/7/1

Y1 - 2022/7/1

N2 - Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) can funnel stars and stellar remnants from the vicinity of the galactic center into the inner plane of the AGN disk. Stars reaching this inner region can be tidally disrupted by the stellar-mass black holes in the disk. Such micro tidal disruption events (micro-TDEs) could be a useful probe of stellar interaction with the AGN disk. We find that micro-TDEs in AGNs occur at a rate of 1/4170 Gpc-3 yr-1. Their cleanest observational probe may be the electromagnetic detection of tidal disruption in AGNs by heavy supermassive black holes (M • 3 108 M ⊙) that cannot tidally disrupt solar-type stars. The reconstructed rate of such events from observations, nonetheless, appears to be much lower than our estimated micro-TDE rate. We discuss two such micro-TDE candidates observed to date (ASASSN-15lh and ZTF19aailpwl).

AB - Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) can funnel stars and stellar remnants from the vicinity of the galactic center into the inner plane of the AGN disk. Stars reaching this inner region can be tidally disrupted by the stellar-mass black holes in the disk. Such micro tidal disruption events (micro-TDEs) could be a useful probe of stellar interaction with the AGN disk. We find that micro-TDEs in AGNs occur at a rate of 1/4170 Gpc-3 yr-1. Their cleanest observational probe may be the electromagnetic detection of tidal disruption in AGNs by heavy supermassive black holes (M • 3 108 M ⊙) that cannot tidally disrupt solar-type stars. The reconstructed rate of such events from observations, nonetheless, appears to be much lower than our estimated micro-TDE rate. We discuss two such micro-TDE candidates observed to date (ASASSN-15lh and ZTF19aailpwl).

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Tidal Disruption on Stellar-mass Black Holes in Active Galactic Nuclei

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