A loud quasi-periodic oscillation after a star is disrupted by a massive black hole
Abstract
Oscillating x-rays reveal black hole spin When a star passes close to a massive black hole (MBH), it is ripped apart by the strong tidal forces. As the resulting debris falls toward the MBH, it heats up, emitting light and x-rays in a tidal disruption event (TDE). Pasham et al. examined x-ray observations of a TDE that occurred in 2014. The x-ray emissions varied in a quasi-periodic oscillation every 131 seconds. The rapid rate of this oscillation could only have arisen from material orbiting close to the MBH's event horizon, which indicates that the MBH is spinning rapidly. Science, this issue p. 531 Quasi-periodic oscillations in x-ray observations of a tidal disruption event indicate a rapidly spinning supermassive black hole. The tidal forces close to massive black holes can rip apart stars that come too close to them. As the resulting stellar debris spirals toward the black hole, the debris heats up and emits x-rays. We report observations of a stable 131-second x-ray quasi-periodic oscillation from the tidal disruption event ASASSN-14li. Assuming the black hole mass indicated by host galaxy scaling relations, these observations imply that the periodicity originates from close to the event horizon and that the black hole is rapidly spinning. Our findings demonstrate that tidal disruption events can generate quasi-periodic oscillations that encode information about the physical properties of their black holes.
Read the paper
Related studies
- A Survey on Knowledge Graphs: Representation, Acquisition, and Applications
- Toxicity of nanomaterials
- The Human Gene Mutation Database: towards a comprehensive repository of inherited mutation data for medical research, genetic diagnosis and next-generation sequencing studies
- Halogen bonding (X‐bonding): A biological perspective
- Biofilm formation at the air–liquid interface by the Pseudomonas fluorescens SBW25 wrinkly spreader requires an acetylated form of cellulose
- Opioid Activation of Toll-Like Receptor 4 Contributes to Drug Reinforcement
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.