On tidal detonation of stars by massive black holes

Following the work of Carter and Luminet, three-dimensional numerical models have been constructed which describe the process of tidal compression of a star by a massive black hole. The star is at once stretched along the orbit, and, in the direction perpendicular to the orbital plane, the stellar material is squeezed through a fixed point along the orbit. This compression leads to shock heating. The results indicate that the star does not reach the high temperatures and densities envisaged by Carter and Luminet, and the triple-α reaction does not detonate. However, for approaches of 1 M_sun; stars within 10 Schwarzschild radii of a 10⁵ M_sun; black hole, significant nonequilibrium CNO processing takes place, and the energy released by the CNO reactions is comparable to the binding energy of the stars.