2014ApJ...793..105G

After showing four quasi-periodic outbursts spaced by ∼1 yr from 2009 to 2012, the hyper luminous X-ray source ESO 243-49 HLX-1, currently the best intermediate mass black hole (IMBH) candidate, showed an outburst in 2013 delayed by more than a month. In Lasota et al., we proposed that the X-ray light curve is the result of enhanced mass transfer episodes at periapsis from a donor star orbiting the IMBH in a highly eccentric orbit. In this scenario, the delay can be explained only if the orbital parameters can change suddenly from orbit to orbit. To investigate this, we ran Newtonian smooth particle hydrodynamical simulations starting with an incoming donor approaching an IMBH on a parabolic orbit. We survey a large parameter space by varying the star-to-black hole mass ratio (10^–5-10^–3) and the periapsis separation r_p from 2.2 to 2.7r_twith r_t, the tidal radius. To model the donor, we choose several polytropes (Γ = 5/2, n = 3/2, Γ = 3/2, n = 2, Γ = 5/3, n = 2, and Γ = 5/3,