Dust-enshrouded star near supermassive black hole: predictions for high-eccentricity passages near low-luminosity galactic nuclei

Supermassive black holes reside in cores of galaxies, where they are often surrounded by a nuclear cluster and a clumpy torus of gas and dust. Mutual interactions can set some stars on a plunging trajectory towards the black hole. We model the pericentre passage of a dust-enshrouded star during which the dusty envelope becomes stretched by tidal forces and is affected by the interaction with the surrounding medium. In particular, we explore under which conditions these encounters can lead to periods of enhanced accretion activity. We discuss different scenarios for such a dusty source. To this end, we employed a modification of the Swift integration package. Elements of the cloud were modelled as numerical particles that represent the dust component that interacts with the optically thin gaseous environment. We determine the fraction of the total mass of the dust component that is diverted from the original path during the passages through the pericentre at $\sim 10^3$ Schwarzschild radii and find that the main part of the dust ($\gtrsim 90\%$ of its mass) is significantly affected upon the first crossing. The fraction of mass captured at the second passage generally decreases to very low values. As an example, we show predictions for the dusty source evolution assuming the current orbital parameters of the G2 cloud (also known as Dusty S-Cluster Object, DSO) in our Galactic centre. Encounter of a core-less cloud with a supermassive black hole is, most likely, a non-repeating event: the cloud is destroyed. However, in the case of a dust-enshrouded star, part of the envelope survives the pericentre passage. We discuss an offset of $\lesssim 0.3$ arcsec between the centre of mass of the diverted part and the star along the eccentric orbit. Finally, we examine an interesting possibility of a binary star embedded within a common wind envelope that becomes dispersed at the pericentre passage.Comment: 18 pages, 15 figures, Astronomy and Astrophysics accepte

An outbreak of food poisoning among children attending an international sports event in Johannesburg

Objectives. To describe an outbreak of food poisoning at a major international sports event in Johannesburg and to determine the likely cause and source of the outbreak.Design. A descriptive, case-control study.Setting. An international sports event in Johannesburg.Methods. A questionnaire survey of involved children was used to conduct a case-control study. Microbiological and chemical analysis of the implicated food was undertaken. Site visits to the premises involved in food preparation were conducted.Results. A total of 578 children were involved. Of the 361 children who returned questionnaires, 134 were affected by an acute-onset emetic-type illness, while 53 children developed diarrhoea. Consumption of fruit juice was associated with acute illness, while diarrhoea was associated with the consumption of maize-meal porridge (pap) and chicken stew. Microbiological analysis revealed high bacterial loads in samples of the fruit juice and the presence of Shigella flexneri in the maize-meal porridge. Visits to the suppliers of the implicated foods revealed several deficiencies in terms of food hygiene precautions.Conclusion. The likely vehicles and causes of this outbreak are elucidated. Guidelines for monitoring the supply and distribution of food to future similar events should be established. Furthermore, hospitals should have protocols in place to deal with such outbreaks in a manner that facilitates epidemiological investigation

Depletion of bright red giants in the Galactic center during its active phases

Observations in the near-infrared domain showed the presence of the flat core of bright late-type stars inside $\sim 0.5\,{\rm pc}$ from the Galactic center supermassive black hole (Sgr A*), while young massive OB/Wolf-Rayet stars form a cusp. Several dynamical processes were proposed to explain this apparent paradox of the distribution of the Galactic center stellar populations. Given the mounting evidence about a significantly increased activity of Sgr A* during the past million years, we propose a scenario based on the interaction between the late-type giants and a nuclear jet, whose past existence and energetics can be inferred from the presence of $\gamma$-ray Fermi bubbles and bipolar radio bubbles. Extended, loose envelopes of red giant stars can be ablated by the jet with kinetic luminosity in the range of $L_{\rm j}\approx 10^{41}$-$10^{44}\,{\rm erg\,s^{-1}}$ within the inner $\sim 0.04\,{\rm pc}$ of Sgr A* (S cluster region), which would lead to their infrared luminosity decrease after several thousand jet-star interactions. The ablation of the atmospheres of red giants is complemented by the process of tidal stripping that operates at distances of $\lesssim 1\,{\rm mpc}$, and by the direct mechanical interaction of stars with a clumpy disc at $\gtrsim 0.04\,{\rm pc}$, which can explain the flat density profile of bright late-type stars inside the inner half parsec from Sgr A*.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures, 3 tables; accepted for publication by the Astrophysical Journa

Polarimetry and strong gravity effects from spots orbiting near a black hole

We study the modulation of the observed radiation flux and the associated changes in the polarization degree and angle that are predicted by the orbiting spot model for flares from accreting black holes. The geometric shape of the emission region influences the resulting model lightcurves, namely, the emission region of a spiral shape can be distinguished from a simpler geometry of a small orbiting spot.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures; to appear in Proceedings of the 15th Marcel Grossman Meeting on General Relativity - the session AC1 on "Spectral and Temporal properties of Black Holes and Neutron Stars and the Theoretical Models" by Sandip Chakrabarti (Rome, 1-7 July 2018), edited by Elia Battistelli, Robert T. Jantzen, and Remo Ruffini, in preparatio

Effect of Electromagnetic Interaction on Galactic Center Flare Components

Recently, near-infrared GRAVITY@ESO observations at $2.2\,\mu{\rm m}$ have announced the detection of three bright "flares" in the vicinity of the Galactic center supermassive black hole (SMBH) that exhibited orbital motion at a distance of about $6 - 11$ gravitational radii from an $\sim 4\times 10^6\, M_{\odot}$ black hole. There are indications of the presence of a large-scale, organized component of the magnetic field at the Galactic center. Electromagnetic effects on the flare dynamics were previously not taken into account despite the relativistic motion of a plasma in magnetic field leading to the charge separation and nonnegligible net charge density in the plasma. Applying various approaches, we find the net charge number density of the flare components of the order of $10^{-3} - 10^{-4}$ cm$^{-3}$, while the particles' total number density is of the order of $10^{6} - 10^{8}$ cm$^{-3}$. However, even such a tiny excess of charged particles in the quasi-neutral plasma can significantly affect the dynamics of flare components, which can then lead to the degeneracy in the measurements of spin of the SMBH. Analyzing the dynamics of recent flares in the case of the rapidly rotating black hole, we also constrain the inclination angle between the magnetic field and spin axis to $\alpha < 50^{\circ}$, as for larger angles, the motion of the hot spot is strongly chaotic.Comment: 28 pages, 7 figures; to appear in the Astrophysical Journal; accepted versio

The Evaporating Massive Embedded Stellar Cluster IRS 13 Close to Sgr A*. I. Detection of a rich population of dusty objects in the IRS 13 cluster

A detailed analysis of the Nuclear Stellar Cluster (NSC) concedes not only the existence of the Scluster with its fast-moving stars and the supermassive black hole (SMBH) Sgr A*. It also reveals an embedded region of gas and dust with an exceptionally high stellar density called IRS 13. The IRS 13 cluster can be divided into the northern and the eastern counterparts, called IRS 13N and IRS 13E, respectively. This work will focus on both regions and study their most prominent members using rich infrared and radio/submm data baselines. Applying a multiwavelength analysis enables us to determine a comprehensive photometric footprint of the investigated cluster sample. Using the raytracing-based radiative transfer model HYPERION, the spectral energy distribution of the IRS 13 members suggests a stellar nature of the dusty sources. These putative Young Stellar Objects (YSOs) have a comparable spectroscopic identification to the D and G sources in or near the S cluster. Furthermore, we report the existence of a population of dusty sources in IRS 13 that can be mostly identified in the H-, K-, and Lband. Together with the objects reported in literature, we propose that this population is the outcome of a recent star formation process. Furthermore, we report that these presumably young objects are arranged in a disk structure. Although it cannot be excluded that the intrinsic arrangement of IRS 13 does show a disk structure, we find indications that the investigated cluster sample might be related to the counterclockwise disk.Comment: 59 pages, 44 figures, accepted and published by the Ap