Simulating black hole white dwarf encounters

Stephan Rosswog; Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz; W. Raphael Hix; M. Dan

doi:10.1016/j.cpc.2008.01.031

Simulating black hole white dwarf encounters

Stephan Rosswog, Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz, W. Raphael Hix, M. Dan

Theoretical and Computational Physics

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

43 Scopus citations

Abstract

The existence of supermassive black holes lurking in the centers of galaxies and of stellar binary systems containing a black hole with a few solar masses has been established beyond reasonable doubt. The idea that black holes of intermediate masses (∼ 1000 M_ȯ) may exist in globular star clusters has gained credence over recent years but no conclusive evidence has been established yet. An attractive feature of this hypothesis is the potential to not only disrupt solar-type stars but also compact white dwarf stars. In close encounters the white dwarfs can be sufficiently compressed to thermonuclearly explode. The detection of an underluminous thermonuclear explosion accompanied by a soft, transient X-ray signal would be compelling evidence for the presence of intermediate mass black holes in stellar clusters. In this paper we focus on the numerical techniques used to simulate the entire disruption process from the initial parabolic orbit, over the nuclear energy release during tidal compression, the subsequent ejection of freshly synthesized material and the formation process of an accretion disk around the black hole.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	184-189
Number of pages	6
Journal	Computer Physics Communications
Volume	179
Issue number	1-3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpc.2008.01.031
State	Published - Jul 2008

Funding

We thank Holger Baumgardt, Peter Goldreich, Jim Gunn, Piet Hut, Dan Kasen and Martin Rees for very useful discussions. The simulations presented in this paper were performed on the JUMP computer of the Höchstleistungsrechenzentrum Jülich. E.R. acknowledges support from the DOE Program for Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC; DE-FC02-01ER41176). W.R.H. has been partly supported by the National Science Foundation under contracts PHY-0244783 and AST-0653376. Oak Ridge National Laboratory is managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725.

Keywords

Black holes
Meshfree Lagrangian hydrodynamics
Nuclear reactions
Reactive flows

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10.1016/j.cpc.2008.01.031

Cite this

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title = "Simulating black hole white dwarf encounters",

abstract = "The existence of supermassive black holes lurking in the centers of galaxies and of stellar binary systems containing a black hole with a few solar masses has been established beyond reasonable doubt. The idea that black holes of intermediate masses (∼ 1000 Mȯ) may exist in globular star clusters has gained credence over recent years but no conclusive evidence has been established yet. An attractive feature of this hypothesis is the potential to not only disrupt solar-type stars but also compact white dwarf stars. In close encounters the white dwarfs can be sufficiently compressed to thermonuclearly explode. The detection of an underluminous thermonuclear explosion accompanied by a soft, transient X-ray signal would be compelling evidence for the presence of intermediate mass black holes in stellar clusters. In this paper we focus on the numerical techniques used to simulate the entire disruption process from the initial parabolic orbit, over the nuclear energy release during tidal compression, the subsequent ejection of freshly synthesized material and the formation process of an accretion disk around the black hole.",

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N2 - The existence of supermassive black holes lurking in the centers of galaxies and of stellar binary systems containing a black hole with a few solar masses has been established beyond reasonable doubt. The idea that black holes of intermediate masses (∼ 1000 Mȯ) may exist in globular star clusters has gained credence over recent years but no conclusive evidence has been established yet. An attractive feature of this hypothesis is the potential to not only disrupt solar-type stars but also compact white dwarf stars. In close encounters the white dwarfs can be sufficiently compressed to thermonuclearly explode. The detection of an underluminous thermonuclear explosion accompanied by a soft, transient X-ray signal would be compelling evidence for the presence of intermediate mass black holes in stellar clusters. In this paper we focus on the numerical techniques used to simulate the entire disruption process from the initial parabolic orbit, over the nuclear energy release during tidal compression, the subsequent ejection of freshly synthesized material and the formation process of an accretion disk around the black hole.

AB - The existence of supermassive black holes lurking in the centers of galaxies and of stellar binary systems containing a black hole with a few solar masses has been established beyond reasonable doubt. The idea that black holes of intermediate masses (∼ 1000 Mȯ) may exist in globular star clusters has gained credence over recent years but no conclusive evidence has been established yet. An attractive feature of this hypothesis is the potential to not only disrupt solar-type stars but also compact white dwarf stars. In close encounters the white dwarfs can be sufficiently compressed to thermonuclearly explode. The detection of an underluminous thermonuclear explosion accompanied by a soft, transient X-ray signal would be compelling evidence for the presence of intermediate mass black holes in stellar clusters. In this paper we focus on the numerical techniques used to simulate the entire disruption process from the initial parabolic orbit, over the nuclear energy release during tidal compression, the subsequent ejection of freshly synthesized material and the formation process of an accretion disk around the black hole.

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KW - Reactive flows

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Simulating black hole white dwarf encounters

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Keywords

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