skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Nuclear Ignition of White Dwarf Stars by Relativistic Encounters with Rotating Intermediate Mass Black Holes

Journal Article · · The Astrophysical Journal (Online)
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [1]; ORCiD logo [3]
  1. Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
  2. Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States)
  3. College of Charleston, Charleston, SC (United States); Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)

We present results from general relativistic calculations of nuclear ignition in white dwarf stars triggered by near encounters with rotating intermediate mass black holes with different spin and alignment parameters. These encounters create thermonuclear environments characteristic of Type Ia supernovae capable of producing both calcium and iron-group elements in arbitrary ratios, depending primarily on the proximity of the interaction which acts as a strong moderator of nucleosynthesis. Here, we explore the effects of black hole spin and spin-orbital alignment on burn-product synthesis to determine whether they might also be capable of moderating reactive flows. When normalized to equivalent impact penetration, accounting for frame-dragging corrections, the influence of spin is weak, no more than 25% as measured by nuclear energy release and mass of burn products, even for near maximally rotating black holes. Stars on prograde trajectories approach closer to the black hole and produce significantly more unbound debris and iron-group elements than is possible by encounters with nonrotating black holes or by retrograde orbits, at more than 50% mass conversion efficiency. The debris contains several radioisotopes, most notably 56Ni, made in amounts that produce subluminous (but still observable) light curves compared to branch-normal SNe Ia.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-07NA27344
OSTI ID:
1577239
Report Number(s):
LLNL-JRNL-777261; 970929; TRN: US2102137
Journal Information:
The Astrophysical Journal (Online), Vol. 885, Issue 2; ISSN 1538-4357
Publisher:
Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 4 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (63)

Tidal disruption of a white dwarf by a black hole: the diversity of nucleosynthesis, explosion energy, and the fate of debris streams journal March 2018
Tidal Disruptions of White Dwarfs from Ultra-Close Encounters with Intermediate-Mass Spinning Black Holes journal March 2012
Ultra-Close Encounters of Stars with Massive Black Holes: Tidal Disruption Events with Prompt Hyperaccretion journal May 2015
[ITAL]Hubble Space Telescope[/ITAL] Evidence for an Intermediate-Mass Black Hole in the Globular Cluster M15. II. Kinematic Analysis and Dynamical Modeling journal December 2002
Astrophysical Reaction Rates From Statistical Model Calculations journal May 2000
A 20,000 [ITAL]M[/ITAL][TINF]⊙[/TINF] Black Hole in the Stellar Cluster G1 journal October 2002
Addendum: [ITAL]Hubble Space Telescope[/ITAL] Evidence for an Intermediate-Mass Black Hole in the Globular Cluster M15. II. Kinematic Analysis and Dynamical Modeling [[URL ADDRESS="/cgi-bin/resolve?2002AJ....124.3270G" STATUS="OKAY"]Astron. J. [BF]124[/BF], 3270 (2002)[/URL]] journal January 2002
Black Hole Spin Evolution journal February 2004
Tidal Disruption and Ignition of White Dwarfs by Moderately Massive Black Holes journal March 2009
Dynamics of an affine star model in a black hole tidal field journal June 1986
Nucleosynthesis in Early Supernova Winds. II. The Role of Neutrinos journal June 2006
Disk-Accretion onto a Black Hole. II. Evolution of the Hole journal July 1974
ANALYTICAL EXPRESSIONS FOR LIGHT CURVES OF ORDINARY AND SUPERLUMINOUS TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE journal August 2015
Neutrino-Induced Nucleosynthesis of A > 64 Nuclei: The ν p Process journal April 2006
Chandra X-ray constraints on the candidate Ca-rich gap transient SN 2016hnk journal January 2018
Numerical Simulations of Optically Thick Accretion onto a Black Hole. i. Spherical case journal June 2012
An Intermediate‐Mass Black Hole in the Globular Cluster G1: Improved Significance from New Keck and Hubble Space Telescope Observations journal December 2005
Numerical Simulations of Optically Thick Accretion onto a Black Hole. ii. Rotating flow journal October 2014
An Inexpensive Nuclear Energy Generation Network for Stellar Hydrodynamics journal July 2000
Three-Dimensional Moving-Mesh Simulations of Galactic Center Cloud g2 journal October 2012
Spontaneous Initiation of Detonations in White Dwarf Environments: Determination of Critical Sizes journal April 2009
Dynamical Bar-Mode Instability in Differentially Rotating Magnetized Neutron Stars journal December 2009
The Accuracy, Consistency, and Speed of an Electron‐Positron Equation of State Based on Table Interpolation of the Helmholtz Free Energy journal February 2000
Conditions for Successful Helium Detonations in Astrophysical Environments journal June 2013
Optical Thermonuclear Transients from Tidal Compression of White Dwarfs as Tracers of the low end of the Massive Black hole mass Function journal February 2016
Shock waves in tidally compressed stars by massive black holes journal February 2008
On the theory of Type I supernovae journal May 1979
SDSS J160531.84+174826.1: A Dwarf Disk Galaxy with an Intermediate‐Mass Black Hole journal March 2007
Presupernova evolution of massive stars journal October 1978
Does Explosive Nuclear Burning Occur in Tidal Disruption Events of White Dwarfs by Intermediate-mass Black Holes? journal April 2017
Consequences of strong compression in tidal disruption events journal September 2013
The Production of 44Ti and 60Co in Supernovae journal June 1996
Calcium-rich gap transients: tidal detonations of white dwarfs? journal May 2015
Tidal disruptions by rotating black holes: effects of spin and impact parameter journal June 2019
Solar System Abundances and Condensation Temperatures of the Elements journal July 2003
Nucleosynthesis in neutron-rich supernova ejecta journal October 1985
Integration of Nuclear Reaction Networks for Stellar Hydrodynamics journal September 1999
Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (Mesa) journal December 2010
REACTION RATE SENSITIVITY OF 44 Ti PRODUCTION IN MASSIVE STARS AND IMPLICATIONS OF A THICK TARGET YIELD MEASUREMENT OF 40 Ca(α, γ) 44 Ti journal May 2010
Relativistic Tidal Disruption and Nuclear Ignition of White Dwarf Stars by Intermediate-mass Black Holes journal September 2018
CosmosDG: An hp -adaptive Discontinuous Galerkin Code for Hyper-resolved Relativistic MHD journal August 2017
Prospects for Observing and Localizing Gravitational-Wave Transients with Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo journal February 2016
Distinguishing spin-aligned and isotropic black hole populations with gravitational waves journal August 2017
Cosmos++ : Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamics on Unstructured Grids with Local Adaptive Refinement journal December 2005
Black Hole Spin via Continuum Fitting and the Role of Spin in Powering Transient Jets journal July 2013
Tidal disruption of stars by black holes of 106–108 solar masses in nearby galaxies journal June 1988
Measuring Black Hole Spin Using X-Ray Reflection Spectroscopy journal August 2013
Tidal disruption and ignition of white dwarfs by moderately massive black holes text January 2008
Spontaneous Initiation of Detonations in White Dwarf Environments: Determination of Critical Sizes text January 2009
Tidal Disruptions of White Dwarfs from Ultra-Close Encounters with Intermediate Mass Spinning Black Holes text January 2012
Numerical Simulations of Optically Thick Accretion onto a Black Hole - I. Spherical Case text January 2012
Measuring Black Hole Spin using X-ray Reflection Spectroscopy text January 2013
Conditions For Successful Helium Detonations In Astrophysical Environments text January 2013
Numerical Simulations of Optically Thick Accretion onto a Black Hole - II. Rotating Flow text January 2014
Ultra-Close Encounters of Stars With Massive Black Holes: Tidal Disruption Events With Prompt Hyperaccretion text January 2015
Calcium-Rich Gap Transients: Tidal Detonations of White Dwarfs? text January 2015
Tidal Disruption of a White Dwarf by a Black Hole: The Diversity of Nucleosynthesis, Explosion Energy, and the Fate of Debris Streams text January 2017
Distinguishing Spin-Aligned and Isotropic Black Hole Populations With Gravitational Waves text January 2017
Chandra X-ray Constraints on the Candidate Ca-rich Gap Transient SN 2016hnk text January 2017
Relativistic Tidal Disruption and Nuclear Ignition of White Dwarf Stars by Intermediate Mass Black Holes text January 2018
Tidal disruptions by rotating black holes: effects of spin and impact parameter text January 2019
Black Hole Spin Evolution text January 2003
Nucleosynthesis in Early Supernova Winds II: The Role of Neutrinos text January 2005

Cited By (1)