Astroplasmas Seminar

Next seminar

Friday, January 28th 2021, 12.30pm

Aftermath of White Dwarf Tidal Capture

Wenbin Lu (Princeton University)

Abstract: Tidal capture of a white dwarf (WD) by a stellar-mass compact object occurs due to close encounters (with periastron separation of a few WD radii) in dense stellar clusters as well as in triple systems. We consider the subsequent evolution of the binary system after the tidal capture, under the influence of dynamical tides and gravitational waves (GWs). We find that the post-capture orbit rapidly shrinks to an eccentricity of about 0.9 in about 10 years as a result of diffusive growth of the amplitude of the prograde f-mode oscillation. Afterwards, the mode amplitude stops growing diffusively, and the orbital decay is dominated by GW emission with a merger time of a few kyr. The observational appearance of the system in the GW and electromagnetic sky will be discussed.

Scheduled seminars (Fall 2021 / Spring 2022)

24 Sept: Jens Mahlmann (Princeton University)

01 Oct: Bart Ripperda (Center for Computational Astrophysics and Princeton University)

08 Oct: David Hosking (Oxford University)

15 Oct: Ben Prather (University of Illinois)

22 Oct: Tamar Faran (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Luciano Combi (Instituto Argentino de Radioastronomía)

29 Oct: Aaron Tran (Columbia University) and Itai Linial (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

05 Nov: Lorenzo Perrone (Cambridge University)

19 Nov: Fabio Bacchini (University of Colorado)

03 Dec: Elizabeth Tolman (Institute of Advanced Studies)

10 Dec: Elias Most (Institute of Advanced Studies and Princeton University)

14 Jan: Emily Lichko (University of Arizona)

28 Jan: Wenbin Lu (Princeton University)

15 Apr: Anna Chashkina (Tel Aviv University)