Rates of capture of stars by supermassive black holes in non-spherical   galactic nuclei
  We consider the problem of star consumption by supermassive black holes in non-spherical (axisymmetric, triaxial) galactic nuclei. We review the previous studies of the loss-cone problem and present a novel simulation method which allows to separate out the collisional (relaxation-related) and collisionless (related to non-conservation of angular momentum) processes and determine their relative importance for the capture rates in different geometries. We show that for black holes more massive than 10^7 Msun, the enhancement of capture rate in non-spherical galaxies is substantial, with even modest triaxiality being capable of keeping the capture rate at the level of few percent of black hole mass per Hubble time. 
Eugene Vasiliev
astro-ph.GA