RELATION BETWEEN TIDAL DISRUPTION EVENTS AND HOST GALAXIES

Image: Artistic illustration of a black hole divouring a star. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Lab

A tidal disruption event occurs when a star gets close enough to a supermassive black hole's event horizon and is pulled apart by the black hole's tidal forces.
In a recent paper (French, Arcavi & Zabludoff, 2016 ApJL) the authors show that the tidal disruption events occur more frequently in host galaxies with strong Balmer line absorption. This feature indicates low levels of current star formation.

The Balmer lines in atomic physics, is the designation of one of a set of six named series describing the spectral line emissions of the hydrogen atom. The Balmer series is characterized by the electron transitioning from n > 2 to n = 2, where n refers to the radial quantum number or principal quantum number of the electron.

In the simplified Rutherford Bohr model of the hydrogen atom, the Balmer lines result from an electron jump between the second energy level closest to the nucleus, and those levels more distant. Shown here is a photon emission. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balmer_series)

The connection tidal-disruption/host-galaxy may be due to the fact that these host galaxies have had a recent galaxy-galaxy merger. Such event increases the possibility of formation of black-hole binaries, perturbed stellar orbits and a spatially-concentrated population of A giant stars.

Figure: Tidal disruption of a star. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Swift

▪ French, Arcavi & Zabludoff (ApJL) - Tidal drisuption events prefer unusual host galaxies. (arXiv)

Comments

A Sapphire Super-Earth

Twenty-one light years away, in the constellation Cassiopeia, a planet by the name of HD219134 b orbits its star with a year that is just three days long. With a mass almost five times that of Earth, it is what is known as a super-Earth. Unlike our planet, however, these super-Earths were formed at high temperatures close to their host star and contain high quantities of calcium, aluminum and their oxides – including sapphire and ruby. HD219134 b is one of three candidates likely to belong to a new, exotic class of exoplanets. These objects are completely different from the majority of Earth-like planets. They have 10 to 20 percent lower densities than Earth. Researchers looked at different scenarios to explain the observed densities. For example, a thick atmosphere could lead to a lower overall density. But two of the exoplanets studied, 55 Cancri e and WASP-47 e, orbit their star so closely that their surface temperature is almost 3,000 degrees and they would have lost this ...

A Galaxy on the Edge

Image: This colourful stripe of stars, gas, and dust is actually a spiral galaxy named NGC 1055. Captured here by ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), this big galaxy is thought to be up to 15 percent larger in diameter than the Milky Way. NGC 1055 appears to lack the whirling arms characteristic of a spiral, as it is seen edge-on. However, it displays odd twists in its structure that were probably caused by an interaction with a large neighbouring galaxy. Credit: ESO Spiral galaxies throughout the Universe take on all manner of orientations with respect to Earth. We see some from above (as it were) or “face-on” — a good example of this being the whirlpool-shaped galaxy NGC 1232. Image: This spectacular image of the large spiral galaxy NGC 1232 was obtained on September 21, 1998, during a period of good observing conditions. It is based on three exposures in ultra-violet, blue and red light, respectively. The colours of the different regions are well visible : the cent...

GAMMA-RAY EMISSION FROM THE SNR HB3

Image: At a distance of about 20,000 light years, G292.0+1.8 is one of only three supernova remnants in the Milky Way known to contain large amounts of oxygen. These oxygen-rich supernovas are of great interest to astronomers because they are one of the primary sources of the heavy elements (that is, everything other than hydrogen and helium) necessary to form planets and people. The X-ray image from Chandra shows a rapidly expanding, intricately structured, debris field that contains, along with oxygen (yellow and orange), other elements such as magnesium (green) and silicon and sulfur (blue) that were forged in the star before it exploded. Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO The processes of particles acceleration to very high energies from the supernova shock region and diffusion in the interstellar medium of such particles has not been well understood so far. Gamma-ray observations in the GeV regime are a powerful probe of these mechanisms

SpaceTime

Search This Blog