Dynamics of recaptures, ejections and mergers of stellar mass binaries over multiple encounters with SgrA*

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Hauptverfasser: Sersante, Biancamaria, Penoyre, Zephyr, Rossi, Elena Maria
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Sersante, Biancamaria
Penoyre, Zephyr
Rossi, Elena Maria
author_facet Sersante, Biancamaria
Penoyre, Zephyr
Rossi, Elena Maria
contents A common origin for a host of stellar phenomena in galactic centres is the tidal encounter between stellar binaries and a massive black hole (MBH), known as the ``Hills mechanism''. Following the encounter, binaries may disrupt into an ejected star and a captured one, they may merge, or survive to either fly away or come back for one or more subsequent encounters, until they are either disrupted or fly away. In this paper, we analyse how a binary's fate depends on its orbital parameters, by following its evolution through up to three subsequent pericentre passages. We choose an initial population of circular binaries on parabolic orbits. We present results from our restricted three-body formalism, whose strength lies in the ability to easily explore a multidimensional parameter space and make predictions independent of the binary physical properties. We find that fates depend strongly on orbital inclination, how deep the encounter is into the MBH tidal sphere and on the binary eccentricity, developed during encounters. Generally, non retrograde trajectories, high eccentricities or deep encounters produce disruptions preferentially. Disruption is the most common fate. A significant fraction of the surviving binaries fly away at velocities typically two orders of magnitude smaller than those of ejected stars. Multiple encounters boost disruptions by 20\% or more. Finally, using an example system, we investigate the effect of finite stellar sizes and lifetimes, showing that mergers occur 31\% of the time, and that disruptions are still boosted by 10\% through subsequent passages.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_08499
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Dynamics of recaptures, ejections and mergers of stellar mass binaries over multiple encounters with SgrA*
Sersante, Biancamaria
Penoyre, Zephyr
Rossi, Elena Maria
Astrophysics of Galaxies
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
A common origin for a host of stellar phenomena in galactic centres is the tidal encounter between stellar binaries and a massive black hole (MBH), known as the ``Hills mechanism''. Following the encounter, binaries may disrupt into an ejected star and a captured one, they may merge, or survive to either fly away or come back for one or more subsequent encounters, until they are either disrupted or fly away. In this paper, we analyse how a binary's fate depends on its orbital parameters, by following its evolution through up to three subsequent pericentre passages. We choose an initial population of circular binaries on parabolic orbits. We present results from our restricted three-body formalism, whose strength lies in the ability to easily explore a multidimensional parameter space and make predictions independent of the binary physical properties. We find that fates depend strongly on orbital inclination, how deep the encounter is into the MBH tidal sphere and on the binary eccentricity, developed during encounters. Generally, non retrograde trajectories, high eccentricities or deep encounters produce disruptions preferentially. Disruption is the most common fate. A significant fraction of the surviving binaries fly away at velocities typically two orders of magnitude smaller than those of ejected stars. Multiple encounters boost disruptions by 20\% or more. Finally, using an example system, we investigate the effect of finite stellar sizes and lifetimes, showing that mergers occur 31\% of the time, and that disruptions are still boosted by 10\% through subsequent passages.
title Dynamics of recaptures, ejections and mergers of stellar mass binaries over multiple encounters with SgrA*
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.08499