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Stars may be tidally disrupted if, in a single orbit, they are scattered tooclose to a supermassive black hole (SMBH). Tidal disruption events are thoughtto power luminous but short-lived accretion episodes that can light upotherwise quiescent SMBHs in transient flares. Here we explore a more gradualprocess of tidal stripping where stars approach the tidal disruption radius bystellar evolution while in an eccentric orbit. After the onset of masstransfer, these stars episodically transfer mass to the SMBH every pericenterpassage giving rise to low-level flares that repeat on the orbital timescale.Giant stars, in particular, will exhibit a runaway response to mass loss and"spoon-feed" material to the black hole for tens to hundreds of orbitalperiods. In contrast to full tidal disruption events, the duty cycle of thisfeeding mode is of order unity for black holes with mass greater thanapproximately 10 million solar masses. This mode of quasi-steady SMBH feedingis competitive with indirect SMBH feeding through stellar winds, and spoon-fedgiant stars may play a significant role in determining the quiescent luminosityof local SMBHs.

astrophysical journal/the astrophysical journal

Spoon-Feeding Giant Stars to Supermassive Black Holes: Episodic Mass  Transfer from Evolving Stars and Their Contribution to the Quiescent Activity  of Galactic Nuclei