Tidal encounters of close white dwarf binaries with spinning black holes

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Mahapatra, Aryabrat, Pandey, Adarsh, Banerjee, Pritam, Sarkar, Tapobrata
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Mahapatra, Aryabrat
Pandey, Adarsh
Banerjee, Pritam
Sarkar, Tapobrata
author_facet Mahapatra, Aryabrat
Pandey, Adarsh
Banerjee, Pritam
Sarkar, Tapobrata
contents When a stellar binary encounters a spinning black hole, interesting phenomena might result due to the mutual interaction between the binary spin, orbital angular momentum and the black hole spin. Here we consider such encounters between an intermediate mass spinning black hole and a close identical white dwarf binary system whose center of mass follows a parabolic trajectory. After studying a corresponding three-body problem in the point particle approximation, we perform a suite of smoothed particle hydrodynamics based numerical simulations of such scenarios. For this, we integrate the geodesic equations for the spinning black hole, while considering the hydrodynamics and the self and mutual gravitational interactions of the stars in a Newtonian approximation, an approach justified by the choice of parameters in the theory. We consider various initial configurations of the binary center of mass leading to equatorial and off-equatorial orbits, as also various initial inclinations between the binary's initial spin angular momentum and its initial orbital angular momentum. We find that the effects of black hole spin manifest clearly in the tidal dynamics of the binary components, while the observables of tidal encounters such as mass fallback rates are strongly dependent on the initial inclination angle. We show that the influence of the black hole spin emerges in distinct ways for different initial configurations of the binary's spin alignment. We establish that within the ambits of the Hills mechanism, in certain cases, the fallback rate may show a three-hump structure, due to interactions between tidal debris of the individual stars.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_04870
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Tidal encounters of close white dwarf binaries with spinning black holes
Mahapatra, Aryabrat
Pandey, Adarsh
Banerjee, Pritam
Sarkar, Tapobrata
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
When a stellar binary encounters a spinning black hole, interesting phenomena might result due to the mutual interaction between the binary spin, orbital angular momentum and the black hole spin. Here we consider such encounters between an intermediate mass spinning black hole and a close identical white dwarf binary system whose center of mass follows a parabolic trajectory. After studying a corresponding three-body problem in the point particle approximation, we perform a suite of smoothed particle hydrodynamics based numerical simulations of such scenarios. For this, we integrate the geodesic equations for the spinning black hole, while considering the hydrodynamics and the self and mutual gravitational interactions of the stars in a Newtonian approximation, an approach justified by the choice of parameters in the theory. We consider various initial configurations of the binary center of mass leading to equatorial and off-equatorial orbits, as also various initial inclinations between the binary's initial spin angular momentum and its initial orbital angular momentum. We find that the effects of black hole spin manifest clearly in the tidal dynamics of the binary components, while the observables of tidal encounters such as mass fallback rates are strongly dependent on the initial inclination angle. We show that the influence of the black hole spin emerges in distinct ways for different initial configurations of the binary's spin alignment. We establish that within the ambits of the Hills mechanism, in certain cases, the fallback rate may show a three-hump structure, due to interactions between tidal debris of the individual stars.
title Tidal encounters of close white dwarf binaries with spinning black holes
topic High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.04870