Repeating Nuclear Transients from Repeating Partial Tidal Disruption Events

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Bandopadhyay, Ananya, Coughlin, Eric R., Fancher, Julia, Nixon, C. J., Pasham, Dheeraj R.
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2026
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author Bandopadhyay, Ananya
Coughlin, Eric R.
Fancher, Julia
Nixon, C. J.
Pasham, Dheeraj R.
author_facet Bandopadhyay, Ananya
Coughlin, Eric R.
Fancher, Julia
Nixon, C. J.
Pasham, Dheeraj R.
contents Extragalactic nuclear transients that exhibit repeating outbursts can be modeled as the repeated dynamical interaction between bound stars and supermassive black holes (SMBHs). A subset of these transients, with recurrence timescales of months-to-years, have been explained as accretion flares from the repeated tidal stripping of a star by an SMBH, in a repeating partial tidal disruption event (rpTDE). We outline the scope of the rpTDE model and discuss hydrodynamical simulations and analytical predictions for the stability of stars undergoing repeated mass loss, and the long-term evolution of these flares as a function of stellar type and orbital parameters. Our findings demonstrate that high-mass and centrally concentrated stars undergo negligible changes in structure in response to small amounts ($\sim 1-10\% M_\star$) of mass loss, and can survive many mass-stripping encounters with an SMBH. Contrarily, low-mass and less evolved stars are unstable to mass loss, and would be destroyed within a few orbits. We discuss the implications of these results for constraining the stellar type and orbital parameters of observed sources, such as ASASSN-14ko, for which $\gtrsim 20$ flares have been observed, and AT2020vdq, which exhibits a second flare that is brighter than its primary outburst.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_04559
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Repeating Nuclear Transients from Repeating Partial Tidal Disruption Events
Bandopadhyay, Ananya
Coughlin, Eric R.
Fancher, Julia
Nixon, C. J.
Pasham, Dheeraj R.
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Extragalactic nuclear transients that exhibit repeating outbursts can be modeled as the repeated dynamical interaction between bound stars and supermassive black holes (SMBHs). A subset of these transients, with recurrence timescales of months-to-years, have been explained as accretion flares from the repeated tidal stripping of a star by an SMBH, in a repeating partial tidal disruption event (rpTDE). We outline the scope of the rpTDE model and discuss hydrodynamical simulations and analytical predictions for the stability of stars undergoing repeated mass loss, and the long-term evolution of these flares as a function of stellar type and orbital parameters. Our findings demonstrate that high-mass and centrally concentrated stars undergo negligible changes in structure in response to small amounts ($\sim 1-10\% M_\star$) of mass loss, and can survive many mass-stripping encounters with an SMBH. Contrarily, low-mass and less evolved stars are unstable to mass loss, and would be destroyed within a few orbits. We discuss the implications of these results for constraining the stellar type and orbital parameters of observed sources, such as ASASSN-14ko, for which $\gtrsim 20$ flares have been observed, and AT2020vdq, which exhibits a second flare that is brighter than its primary outburst.
title Repeating Nuclear Transients from Repeating Partial Tidal Disruption Events
topic High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.04559