PS1-10jh: The Disruption of a Main-Sequence Star of Near-Solar Composition

TL;DR

This paper uses hydrodynamical simulations to analyze the debris stream from a star disrupted by a supermassive black hole, explaining observed spectral features of the TDE PS1-10jh and proposing a model for emission line formation.

Contribution

It introduces a novel simulation-based model of debris stream confinement and emission line origin in tidal disruption events, explaining spectral observations of PS1-10jh.

Findings

Debris stream is confined by self-gravity, contributing negligibly to emission.

Emission lines originate from the accretion disk region, not the debris stream.

The model explains the presence of He II lines without Balmer or He I lines in PS1-10jh.

Abstract

When a star comes within a critical distance to a supermassive black hole (SMBH), immense tidal forces disrupt the star, resulting in a stream of debris that falls back onto the SMBH and powers a luminous flare. In this paper, we perform hydrodynamical simulations of the disruption of a main-sequence star by a SMBH to characterize the evolution of the debris stream after a tidal disruption. We demonstrate that this debris stream is confined by self-gravity in the two directions perpendicular to the original direction of the star's travel, and as a consequence has a negligible surface area and makes almost no contribution to either the continuum or line emission. We therefore propose that any observed emission lines are not the result of photoionization in this unbound debris, but are produced in the region above and below the forming elliptical accretion disk, analogous to the broad-line region (BLR) in steadily-accreting active galactic nuclei. As each line within a BLR is observationally linked to a particular location in the accretion disk, we suggest that the absence of a line indicates that the accretion disk does not yet extend to the distance required to produce that line. This model can be used to understand the spectral properties of the tidal disruption event (TDE) PS1-10jh, for which He II lines are observed, but the Balmer series and He I are not. Using a maximum likelihood analysis, we show that the disruption of a main-sequence star of near-solar composition can reproduce this event.