Optical Appearance of the Debris of a Star Disrupted by a Massive Black Hole | Zendy

Abraham Loeb | Zendy; Andrew Ulmer | Zendy

AI Assistant Blog Pricing

Home ZAIA Blog

Open Access

Optical Appearance of the Debris of a Star Disrupted by a Massive Black Hole

Author(s) -

Abraham Loeb,

Andrew Ulmer

Publication year - 1997

Publication title -

the astrophysical journal

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

SCImago Journal Rank - 2.376

H-Index - 489

eISSN - 1538-4357

pISSN - 0004-637X

DOI - 10.1086/304814

Subject(s) - physics , astrophysics , eddington luminosity , black hole (networking) , galaxy , luminosity , solar mass , active galactic nucleus , astronomy , intermediate mass black hole , redshift , sky , envelope (radar) , stellar black hole , accretion (finance) , routing protocol , computer science , link state routing protocol , computer network , telecommunications , radar , routing (electronic design automation)

We show that the disruption of a star by a 10^6 solar mass black hole in agalactic nucleus could under favorable circumstances produce an optically-thickenvelope that radiates with a thermal spectrum at the Eddington limit, 10^{44}erg/s, for tens of years. The low apparent temperature of this envelope, 10^4K, would be easily detectable in optical surveys. If most galaxies harbor amassive black hole at their center, then the Sloan Digital Sky Survey mightfind hundreds of galaxies with nuclear activity of this type. Because theenvelope is driven to shine near the Eddington limit, a measurement of thesource redshift and total luminosity could yield the black hole mass.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Ap

The content you want is available to Zendy users.

Already have an account? Click here to sign in.

Having issues? You can contact us here

Accelerating Research