QPEs from Warped Disk Collisions with EMRIs: Brightness-Recurrence Diagram and Gravitational-Wave Follow-up
Abstract
Quasi-Periodic Eruptions (QPEs) display correlated long/short and strong/weak patterns that remain unexplained by existing flat-disk collision models. We propose that these features arise from an extreme-mass-ratio inspiral (EMRI) colliding with a warped accretion disk, likely formed after a tidal disruption event. The warp modulates both recurrence time and burst energy, encoding the disk geometry -- and thus the spin of the central supermassive black hole (SMBH) -- into the X-ray light curve. We introduce the Brightness-Recurrence Diagram (BRD) to visualize this correlation, where QPE bursts trace an elliptical trajectory driven by the EMRI's apsidal precession; the tilt of this ellipse encodes whether the EMRI is prograde or retrograde relative to the SMBH spin. Applying this model to the prototypical QPE source GSN 069 successfully reproduces the observed patterns. The data are consistent with either a prograde stellar secondary or a retrograde stellar-mass black hole. In the stellar-mass black hole scenario, ongoing orbital decay could render the EMRI detectable by LISA within a few decades, facilitating gravitational-wave follow-up and independent multimessenger constraints on the system.
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BibTeX
@misc{chen2026qpes,
title = {{QPEs from Warped Disk Collisions with EMRIs: Brightness-Recurrence Diagram and Gravitational-Wave Follow-up}},
author = {Bo-An Chen and Bei You and Giovanni Miniutti and Ning Jiang and Zhen Pan and Tao Yang and Xi-Long Fan and Kai Liao and Xu-Heng Ding and Zong-Hong Zhu and Shuai-Kang Yang and Sai-En Xu and Han He and Xiao Fan},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2605.24905},
eprint = {2605.24905},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.24905},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - QPEs from Warped Disk Collisions with EMRIs: Brightness-Recurrence Diagram and Gravitational-Wave Follow-up
AU - Bo-An Chen
AU - Bei You
AU - Giovanni Miniutti
AU - Ning Jiang
AU - Zhen Pan
AU - Tao Yang
AU - Xi-Long Fan
AU - Kai Liao
AU - Xu-Heng Ding
AU - Zong-Hong Zhu
AU - Shuai-Kang Yang
AU - Sai-En Xu
AU - Han He
AU - Xiao Fan
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/31
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2605.24905
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.24905
AB - Quasi-Periodic Eruptions (QPEs) display correlated long/short and strong/weak patterns that remain unexplained by existing flat-disk collision models. We propose that these features arise from an extreme-mass-ratio inspiral (EMRI) colliding with a warped accretion disk, likely formed after a tidal disruption event. The warp modulates both recurrence time and burst energy, encoding the disk geometry -- and thus the spin of the central supermassive black hole (SMBH) -- into the X-ray light curve. We introduce the Brightness-Recurrence Diagram (BRD) to visualize this correlation, where QPE bursts trace an elliptical trajectory driven by the EMRI's apsidal precession; the tilt of this ellipse encodes whether the EMRI is prograde or retrograde relative to the SMBH spin. Applying this model to the prototypical QPE source GSN 069 successfully reproduces the observed patterns. The data are consistent with either a prograde stellar secondary or a retrograde stellar-mass black hole. In the stellar-mass black hole scenario, ongoing orbital decay could render the EMRI detectable by LISA within a few decades, facilitating gravitational-wave follow-up and independent multimessenger constraints on the system.
ER -