Revisiting the Rates and Demographics of Tidal Disruption Events: Effects of the Disk Formation Efficiency
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Revisiting the Rates and Demographics of Tidal Disruption Events : Effects of the Disk Formation Efficiency. / Wong, Thomas Hong Tsun; Pfister, Hugo; Dai, Lixin.
In: Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol. 927, No. 1, 19, 01.03.2022.Research output: Contribution to journal › Letter › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Revisiting the Rates and Demographics of Tidal Disruption Events
T2 - Effects of the Disk Formation Efficiency
AU - Wong, Thomas Hong Tsun
AU - Pfister, Hugo
AU - Dai, Lixin
PY - 2022/3/1
Y1 - 2022/3/1
N2 - Tidal disruption events (TDEs) are valuable probes of the demographics of supermassive black holes as well as the dynamics and population of stars in the centers of galaxies. In this Letter, we focus on studying how debris disk formation and circularization processes can impact the possibility of observing prompt flares in TDEs. First, we investigate how the efficiency of disk formation is determined by the key parameters, namely, the black hole mass MBH, the stellar mass ma, and the orbital penetration parameter ss that quantifies how close the disrupted star would orbit around the black hole. Then we calculate the intrinsic differential TDE rate as a function of these three parameters. Combining these two results, we find that the rates of TDEs with prompt disk formation are significantly suppressed around lighter black holes, which provides a plausible explanation for why the observed TDE host black hole mass distribution peaks between 106 and 107Me. Therefore, the consideration of disk formation efficiency is crucial for recovering the intrinsic black hole demographics from TDEs. Furthermore, we find that the efficiency of the disk formation process also impacts the distributions of both stellar orbital penetration parameter and stellar mass observed in TDEs.
AB - Tidal disruption events (TDEs) are valuable probes of the demographics of supermassive black holes as well as the dynamics and population of stars in the centers of galaxies. In this Letter, we focus on studying how debris disk formation and circularization processes can impact the possibility of observing prompt flares in TDEs. First, we investigate how the efficiency of disk formation is determined by the key parameters, namely, the black hole mass MBH, the stellar mass ma, and the orbital penetration parameter ss that quantifies how close the disrupted star would orbit around the black hole. Then we calculate the intrinsic differential TDE rate as a function of these three parameters. Combining these two results, we find that the rates of TDEs with prompt disk formation are significantly suppressed around lighter black holes, which provides a plausible explanation for why the observed TDE host black hole mass distribution peaks between 106 and 107Me. Therefore, the consideration of disk formation efficiency is crucial for recovering the intrinsic black hole demographics from TDEs. Furthermore, we find that the efficiency of the disk formation process also impacts the distributions of both stellar orbital penetration parameter and stellar mass observed in TDEs.
KW - BLACK-HOLE MASSES
KW - STARS
KW - EMISSION
KW - STELLAR
U2 - 10.3847/2041-8213/ac5823
DO - 10.3847/2041-8213/ac5823
M3 - Letter
VL - 927
JO - The Astrophysical Journal Letters
JF - The Astrophysical Journal Letters
SN - 2041-8205
IS - 1
M1 - 19
ER -
ID: 302554059