Description of Activity
Invited talk at the Jeremiah Horrocks Institute seminar series:Title: When ripped apart stars cause galaxies to glow
Abstract: A tiny fraction of galaxies exhibits strong, high-ionization coronal lines. Most of these are powered by active galactic nuclei, but in rare cases where the coronal lines fade away over time, a transient origin is assumed. Over the last few years, my group has provided several lines of evidence that tidal disruption events (TDEs), bright flares emitted when stars are ripped apart by supermassive black holes, are behind this phenomenon. I will show how follow-up spectroscopy, multiwavelength archival observations, and measurements of the rates at which extreme coronal-line emitting galaxies (ECLEs) occur all point to a TDE origin. I will also show how the coronal lines can be used to map the cold gas in the vicinity (<1 pc) of the supermassive black holes at the centers of these galaxies.
| Period | 11 Feb 2026 |
|---|---|
| Held at | University of Central Lancashire, United Kingdom |
| Degree of Recognition | National |
Related content
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Research outputs
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AT 2018dyk: tidal disruption event or active galactic nucleus? Follow-up observations of an extreme coronal line emitter with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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The rate of extreme coronal line emitting galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and their relation to tidal disruption events
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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The rate of extreme coronal line emitters in the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey LOWZ sample
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Long-term follow-up observations of extreme coronal line emitting galaxies
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Projects
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Cosmology, Gravitation and Astrophysics at Portsmouth
Project: Research