peribothron

English

Etymology

Ancient Greek περί (perí, “near”) + βόθρος (bóthros, “pit”)

Noun

peribothron (plural peribothra)

1. (astronomy) The point in an elliptical orbit around a black hole where the orbiting body is closest to the black hole.
   • 2003 August, A Gould& AC Quillen, “Sagittarius A* companion S0-2: a probe of very high mass star formation”, in The Astrophysical Journal, volume 592, number 2:

     We also examine the final peribothra q of these orbits to ensure that they are consistent with the observed value for S0-2.

   • 2006 July, LM Dray, AR King, MB Davies, “Young stars in the Galactic Centre: a potential intermediate-mass star origin”, in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, volume 372, number 1:

     On subsequent peribothra further tidal interactions take place, gradually causing the orbit to decay.

   • 2011, C Wegg, JN Bode, “Multiple tidal disruptions as an indicator of binary supermassive black hole systems”, in The Astrophysical Journal Letters:

     Galaxies harboring an isolated SMBH at their center are expected to quickly clear a "loss cone" of orbits whose angular momenta about the black hole are low enough that their peribothra lie inside r_t .

Related terms

• see periapsis