Related papers: The fine line between total and partial tidal disr…
We point out that the tidal disruption of a giant may leave a luminous (10^35-10^39 ergs/s), hot (10-100 eV) stellar core. The ``supersoft'' source detected by Chandra at the center of M31 may be such a core; whether or not it is, the…
The tidal disruption of a star by a massive black hole is expected to yield a luminous flare of thermal emission. About two dozen of these stellar tidal disruption flares (TDFs) may have been detected in optical transient surveys. However,…
In dense star clusters, such as globular and open clusters, dynamical interactions between stars and black holes (BHs) can be extremely frequent, leading to various astrophysical transients. Close encounters between a star and a stellar…
Tidal disruption events (TDEs) can uncover the quiescent black holes (BHs) at the center of galaxies and also offer a promising method to study them. In a partial TDE (PTDE), the BH's tidal force cannot fully disrupt the star, so the…
We report an observational estimate of the rate of stellar tidal disruption flares (TDFs), based on our (successful) search for these events in archival Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) multi-epoch imaging data. Our pipeline took advantage…
We study the tidal disruption of neutron stars in black hole-neutron star coalescing binaries. We calculate the critical orbital separation at which the star is disrupted by the black hole tidal field for several equations of state…
Stars on orbits with pericenters sufficiently close to the supermassive black hole at the center of their host galaxy can be ripped apart by tidal stresses. Some of the resulting stellar debris becomes more tightly bound to the hole and can…
A supermassive black hole can disrupt a star when its tidal field exceeds the star's self-gravity, and can directly capture stars that cross its event horizon. For black holes with mass M > 10^7 solar masses, tidal disruption of…
Extreme tidal disruption events (eTDEs), which occur when a star passes very close to a supermassive black hole, may provide a way to observe a long-sought general relativistic effect: orbits that wind several times around a black hole and…
We develop a Newtonian model of a deep tidal disruption event (TDE), for which the pericenter distance of the star, $r_{\rm p}$, is well within the tidal radius of the black hole, $r_{\rm t}$, i.e., when $\beta \equiv r_{\rm t}/r_{\rm p}…
The tidal disruption of a star by a supermassive black hole, and the subsequent accretion of the disrupted debris by that black hole, offers a direct means to study the inner regions of otherwise-quiescent galaxies. These tidal disruption…
In our Galactic Center, about 10,000 to 100,000 stars are estimated to have survived tidal disruption events, resulting in partially disrupted remnants. These events occur when a supermassive black hole (SMBH) tidally interacts with a star,…
The disruption of a star by the tidal field of a massive black hole is the final outcome of a chain of complex dynamical processes in the host galaxy. I introduce the "loss cone problem", and describe the many theoretical and numerical…
In a dense stellar environment, such as the core of a globular cluster (GC), dynamical interactions with black holes (BHs) are expected to lead to a variety of astrophysical transients. Here we explore tidal disruption events (TDEs) of…
Stars that pass too close to a supermassive black hole are disrupted by the black hole's tidal gravity and leads to some debris being ejected while the remainder accretes into the black hole. To better study the physics of this debris, we…
The rate of observable tidal disruption events (TDEs) by the most massive black holes (BHs) is suppressed due to direct capture of stars by the event horizon. This suppression effect depends on the shape of the horizon and holds the promise…
A star entering the tidal sphere of a supermassive black hole (SMBH) can be partially stripped of mass, resulting in a partial tidal disruption event (TDE). Here we develop an analytical model for properties of these events, including the…
Tidal forces close to massive black holes can violently disrupt stars that make a close approach. These extreme events are discovered via bright X-ray and optical/UV flares in galactic centers. Prior studies based on modeling decaying flux…
Tidal disruption events occur when stars are ripped apart by massive black holes, and result in highly luminous, multi-wavelength flares. Optical/UV observations of tidal disruption events (TDEs) contradict simple models of TDE emission,…
The disruption of a main-sequence star by a supermassive black hole results in the initial production of an extended debris stream that winds repeatedly around the black hole, producing a complex three-dimensional figure that may…