Pulsed Accretion onto Eccentric Binaries in Highly Misaligned Circumbinary Disks
Abstract
We present three-dimensional smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations of highly misaligned circumbinary disks (CBDs) around moderately eccentric equal-mass binaries (eb=0.5). We show that the binary accretion is modulated on the binary orbital period and exhibits two pulses near periastron. The dominant pulse peaks before periastron for an initial binary-disk misalignment of 60∘, shifts to after periastron at 90∘, and occurs at an even later post-periastron phase at 120∘. We further show that the two pulses are accompanied by a time-dependent response of the circumstellar disks (CSDs) and by different distributions of accreting material within the cavity and around the CSDs. The qualitative pre- versus post-periastron distinction is also present in individual binary orbits despite variations in pulse amplitude. Our results motivate future tests of whether pulse timing is related to binary-disk orientation.
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BibTeX
@misc{yang2026pulsed,
title = {{Pulsed Accretion onto Eccentric Binaries in Highly Misaligned Circumbinary Disks}},
author = {Ruiqi Yang and Jeremy L. Smallwood and Shang-Fei Liu and Alessia Franchini},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.30782},
eprint = {2609.30782},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.30782},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Pulsed Accretion onto Eccentric Binaries in Highly Misaligned Circumbinary Disks
AU - Ruiqi Yang
AU - Jeremy L. Smallwood
AU - Shang-Fei Liu
AU - Alessia Franchini
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/29
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.30782
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.30782
AB - We present three-dimensional smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations of highly misaligned circumbinary disks (CBDs) around moderately eccentric equal-mass binaries (e_b=0.5). We show that the binary accretion is modulated on the binary orbital period and exhibits two pulses near periastron. The dominant pulse peaks before periastron for an initial binary-disk misalignment of 60^∘, shifts to after periastron at 90^∘, and occurs at an even later post-periastron phase at 120^∘. We further show that the two pulses are accompanied by a time-dependent response of the circumstellar disks (CSDs) and by different distributions of accreting material within the cavity and around the CSDs. The qualitative pre- versus post-periastron distinction is also present in individual binary orbits despite variations in pulse amplitude. Our results motivate future tests of whether pulse timing is related to binary-disk orientation.
ER -