peribothron

plural peribothra

1. astronomyThe point in an elliptical orbit around a black hole where the orbiting body is closest to the black hole.

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

   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

   2 more examples

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

   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

   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 rₜ .

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

   Synonyms: perimelasma, perinigricon