Tidal Disruption Events from the Combined Effects of Two-Body Relaxation and the Eccentric Kozai-Lidov Mechanism

Repeated Tidal Disruption Events (TDEs) have been recently reported as an intriguing phenomenon that takes place when a star on a bound orbit wanders too close to a supermassive black hole (SMBH). The star is only partially disrupted, and it returns for a second encounter. Current observations suggest a few-years orbit for these stars. However, how do these stars migrate to such close distances without being completely disrupted? We propose a new mechanism that combines gravitational perturbations from a far-away SMBH companion with weak two-body interactions from the overall population of stars around the primary SMBH. The former mechanism is called the eccentric Kozai-Lidov (EKL) mechanism, while the latter describes two-body relaxation processes. We demonstrate that the combination of those two is imperative to the formation of repeated TDEs.