Activity: Talk or presentation types › Invited talk
Description of Activity
Title: Tidal Disruption Events: Hosts, Rates, and Echoes
Abstract: Tidal disruption events are luminous, transient flares that occur when a star strays past the tidal radius of a supermassive black hole (SMBH) and is torn apart by the SMBH's gravitational field. These transients, predicted in the 70s, are now routinely discovered in optical, wide-field surveys. However, they are rare, and only ~100 such objects have been discovered to date. In my talk, I will describe what we know about the host galaxies of these events and how they relate to their formation mechanism. I will then describe how tidal disruption events can be discovered in spectroscopic surveys, such as SDSS and DESI, by searching for high-ionization iron lines. Tidal disruption events are not only interesting as a new type of transient, they are also useful probes of SMBH/AGN physics and evolution. I will show several examples of such uses, including as scanning machines of the gas in the vicinity of SMBHs.
Period
11 Apr 2024
Held at
Department of Physics and Astronomy, United States, New Jersey