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Published December 18, 2012 | Published + Submitted
Journal Article Open

Prompt emission from tidal disruptions of white dwarfs by intermediate mass black holes

Abstract

We present a qualitative picture of prompt emission from tidal disruptions of white dwarfs (WD) by intermediate mass black holes (IMBH). The smaller size of an IMBH compared to a supermassive black hole and a smaller tidal radius of a WD disruption lead to a very fast event with high peak luminosity. Magnetic field is generated in situ following the tidal disruption, which leads to effective accretion. Since large-scale magnetic field is also produced, geometrically thick super-Eddington inflow leads to a relativistic jet. The dense jet possesses a photosphere, which emits quasi-thermal radiation in soft X-rays. The source can be classified as a long low-luminosity gamma-ray burst (ll-GRB). Tidal compression of a WD causes nuclear ignition, which is observable as an accompanying supernova. We suggest that GRB060218 and SN2006aj is such a pair of ll-GRB and supernova. We argue that in a flux-limited sample the disruptions of WDs by IMBHs are more frequent then the disruptions of other stars by IMBHs.

Additional Information

© 2012 Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Published online 18 December 2012. The work is partially supported by NASA Hubble Fellowship grant HST-HF-51298.01.

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Published - epjconf_tda012_02007.pdf

Submitted - 1212.5267.pdf

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