QPEs from Warped Disk Collisions with EMRIs: Brightness-Recurrence Diagram and Gravitational-Wave Follow-up
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2026
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| author | Chen, Bo-An You, Bei Miniutti, Giovanni Jiang, Ning Pan, Zhen Yang, Tao Fan, Xi-Long Liao, Kai Ding, Xu-Heng Zhu, Zong-Hong Yang, Shuai-Kang Xu, Sai-En He, Han Fan, Xiao |
| author_facet | Chen, Bo-An You, Bei Miniutti, Giovanni Jiang, Ning Pan, Zhen Yang, Tao Fan, Xi-Long Liao, Kai Ding, Xu-Heng Zhu, Zong-Hong Yang, Shuai-Kang Xu, Sai-En He, Han Fan, Xiao |
| contents | Quasi-Periodic Eruptions (QPEs) display correlated long/short and strong/weak patterns that remain unexplained by existing flat-disk collision models. We propose that these features arise from an extreme-mass-ratio inspiral (EMRI) colliding with a warped accretion disk, likely formed after a tidal disruption event. The warp modulates both recurrence time and burst energy, encoding the disk geometry -- and thus the spin of the central supermassive black hole (SMBH) -- into the X-ray light curve. We introduce the Brightness-Recurrence Diagram (BRD) to visualize this correlation, where QPE bursts trace an elliptical trajectory driven by the EMRI's apsidal precession; the tilt of this ellipse encodes whether the EMRI is prograde or retrograde relative to the SMBH spin. Applying this model to the prototypical QPE source GSN 069 successfully reproduces the observed patterns. The data are consistent with either a prograde stellar secondary or a retrograde stellar-mass black hole. In the stellar-mass black hole scenario, ongoing orbital decay could render the EMRI detectable by LISA within a few decades, facilitating gravitational-wave follow-up and independent multimessenger constraints on the system. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_24905 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | QPEs from Warped Disk Collisions with EMRIs: Brightness-Recurrence Diagram and Gravitational-Wave Follow-up Chen, Bo-An You, Bei Miniutti, Giovanni Jiang, Ning Pan, Zhen Yang, Tao Fan, Xi-Long Liao, Kai Ding, Xu-Heng Zhu, Zong-Hong Yang, Shuai-Kang Xu, Sai-En He, Han Fan, Xiao High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics Astrophysics of Galaxies General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology Quasi-Periodic Eruptions (QPEs) display correlated long/short and strong/weak patterns that remain unexplained by existing flat-disk collision models. We propose that these features arise from an extreme-mass-ratio inspiral (EMRI) colliding with a warped accretion disk, likely formed after a tidal disruption event. The warp modulates both recurrence time and burst energy, encoding the disk geometry -- and thus the spin of the central supermassive black hole (SMBH) -- into the X-ray light curve. We introduce the Brightness-Recurrence Diagram (BRD) to visualize this correlation, where QPE bursts trace an elliptical trajectory driven by the EMRI's apsidal precession; the tilt of this ellipse encodes whether the EMRI is prograde or retrograde relative to the SMBH spin. Applying this model to the prototypical QPE source GSN 069 successfully reproduces the observed patterns. The data are consistent with either a prograde stellar secondary or a retrograde stellar-mass black hole. In the stellar-mass black hole scenario, ongoing orbital decay could render the EMRI detectable by LISA within a few decades, facilitating gravitational-wave follow-up and independent multimessenger constraints on the system. |
| title | QPEs from Warped Disk Collisions with EMRIs: Brightness-Recurrence Diagram and Gravitational-Wave Follow-up |
| topic | High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics Astrophysics of Galaxies General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.24905 |