Rapid Growth of Intermediate-Mass Black Holes through Disk-induced Stellar Disruptions
Abstract
Dense nuclear star clusters provide unique environments for studying the dynamical interactions between stars and massive black holes. When an accretion disk is present, dissipative star--disk interactions can capture surrounding stars, drive their inward migration, and ultimately lead to disk-induced tidal disruption events\,(dTDEs). The long-term feeding rate from this process, however, cannot be inferred from single-orbit migration estimates alone, as it depends on the coupled evolution of disk capture, collisional relaxation, stellar depletion and replenishment, and physical mergers within the star cluster. In this work, we use high-performance direct N-body simulations combined with analytic prescriptions for star--disk interactions to follow this coupled evolution for intermediate-mass black holes\,(IMBHs) with accretion disks embedded in dense stellar clusters. The simulations track the formation of the stellar cusp, the capture of stars by repeated disk crossings, their subsequent orbital damping and migration, and their eventual consumption by the central IMBH. We find that dTDEs can sustain stellar mass supply rates of ∼10−3 M⊙ yr−1, which exceeds the Eddington-limited gas accretion rate for IMBHs with M•<105 M⊙. These results identify dTDEs as an efficient stellar feeding channel for IMBHs in gas-rich dense stellar systems. As one possible application, this mechanism may help transform ∼103 M⊙ IMBHs into more massive black-hole seeds, provided that compact stellar clusters and accretion disks persist for >30 Myr.
Related
- Heavy Seed Black Hole Growth in Metal-Enriched Halos through Disk-Induced Stellar Disruptions: A Semi-Analytical Modelling
- The STARfall pathway: forging intermediate-mass black holes through stellar collisions in dense star clusters
- Dark Halos, Intermediate-Mass BH and Nuclear Stellar Clusters in Dwarf Spheroidals
- Stellar discs and intermediate-mass black holes in galactic nuclei II. Fragmenting the disc and forming the S-stars in a live nuclear star cluster
- LACHESIS: Robust stellar parameters through Bayesian model averaging of isochrone grids
BibTeX
@misc{wang2026rapid,
title = {{Rapid Growth of Intermediate-Mass Black Holes through Disk-induced Stellar Disruptions}},
author = {Mengye Wang and Yiqiu Ma and Qingwen Wu and Boyuan Liu and Zijian Wang and Zhili Wang},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.03701},
eprint = {2609.03701},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.03701},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Rapid Growth of Intermediate-Mass Black Holes through Disk-induced Stellar Disruptions
AU - Mengye Wang
AU - Yiqiu Ma
AU - Qingwen Wu
AU - Boyuan Liu
AU - Zijian Wang
AU - Zhili Wang
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/06
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.03701
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.03701
AB - Dense nuclear star clusters provide unique environments for studying the dynamical interactions between stars and massive black holes. When an accretion disk is present, dissipative star--disk interactions can capture surrounding stars, drive their inward migration, and ultimately lead to disk-induced tidal disruption events\,(dTDEs). The long-term feeding rate from this process, however, cannot be inferred from single-orbit migration estimates alone, as it depends on the coupled evolution of disk capture, collisional relaxation, stellar depletion and replenishment, and physical mergers within the star cluster. In this work, we use high-performance direct N-body simulations combined with analytic prescriptions for star--disk interactions to follow this coupled evolution for intermediate-mass black holes\,(IMBHs) with accretion disks embedded in dense stellar clusters. The simulations track the formation of the stellar cusp, the capture of stars by repeated disk crossings, their subsequent orbital damping and migration, and their eventual consumption by the central IMBH. We find that dTDEs can sustain stellar mass supply rates of ∼10^−3 M_⊙ yr^−1, which exceeds the Eddington-limited gas accretion rate for IMBHs with M_•<10^5 M_⊙. These results identify dTDEs as an efficient stellar feeding channel for IMBHs in gas-rich dense stellar systems. As one possible application, this mechanism may help transform ∼10^3 M_⊙ IMBHs into more massive black-hole seeds, provided that compact stellar clusters and accretion disks persist for >30 Myr.
ER -