September 3, 2025

Eccentricity distribution of extreme mass ratio inspirals

D. Mancieri, L. Broggi, M. Vinciguerra, A. Sesana, and M. Bonetti We present realistic eccentricity distributions for extreme mass ratio inspirals (EMRIs) forming via the two-body relaxation channel in nuclear star clusters, tracking their evolution up to the final plunge onto the central Schwarzschild massive black hole (MBH). We find that EMRIs can retain significant eccentricities at plunge, with a distribution peaking at \(e_\mathrm{pl}≈0.2\), and a considerable fraction reaching much higher values.

May 29, 2025

Updated predictions for gravitational wave emission from TDEs for next generation observatories

M. Toscani, L. Broggi, A. Sesana, and E. M. Rossi In this paper, we investigate the gravitational wave (GW) emission from stars tidally disrupted by black holes (TDEs), using a semi- analytical approach. Contrary to previous works where this signal is modeled as a monochromatic burst, we here take into account all its harmonic components. On top of this, we also extend the analysis to a population of repeated-partial TDEs, where the star undergoes multiple passages around the black hole before complete disruption.

November 6, 2024

Breaking boundaries: extending the orbit averaged Fokker-Planck equation inside the loss cone

Broggi, Luca In this letter, we present a new formulation of loss cone theory as a reaction-diffusion system, which is orbit averaged and accounts for loss cone events through a sink term. This formulation can recover the standard approach based on boundary conditions, and is derived from a simple physical model that overcomes many of the classical theoretical constraints. The relaxed distribution of disruptive orbits in phase space has a simple analytic form, and it predicts accurately the pericentre of tidal disruption events at disruption, better than other available formulas.