Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS April Meeting 2013
Volume 58, Number 4
Saturday–Tuesday, April 13–16, 2013; Denver, Colorado
Session D4: Invited Session: Tidal Disruption Events |
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Sponsoring Units: DAP GGR Chair: Clifford Will, University of Florida Room: Plaza F |
Saturday, April 13, 2013 3:30PM - 4:06PM |
D4.00001: Observations of tidal disruptions by black holes Invited Speaker: Suvi Gezari It was first proposed by theorists in the late 1970's that an inevitable consequence of a massive black hole lurking in the center of a galaxy is that stars will pass close enough to the black hole to be ripped apart by its extreme tidal forces and consumed. The resulting flare of radiation from the accretion of the stellar debris would then be a unique signpost for the presence of a dormant black hole in the center of a normal galaxy. It was not until over two decades later that the first convincing tidal disruption event candidates emerged in the X-rays by the ROSAT All-Sky Survey. Since then over a dozen total candidates have now been discovered from searches across the electromagnetic spectrum, including the X-rays, the ultraviolet, and the optical. In the last couple years, we have also witnessed a paradigm shift with the discovery of the onset of relativistic, jetted emission in a tidal disruption event. I will review the census of observational candidates to date, and discuss the exciting prospects for using large samples of tidal disruption events discovered with the next-generation of ground-based and space-based synoptic surveys to probe accretion physics, jet formation, and black hole demographics. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, April 13, 2013 4:06PM - 4:42PM |
D4.00002: Simulations of tidal disruptions Invited Speaker: Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz |
Saturday, April 13, 2013 4:42PM - 5:18PM |
D4.00003: Beller Lectureship: Predictions for Observational Signatures of the Tidal Disruption of Stars Invited Speaker: Linda Strubbe A star that wanders too close to a massive black hole (BH) is shredded by the BH's tidal gravity; soon afterwards, stellar gas starts falling back to the BH, releasing a flare of energy as gas accretes. For days to months following disruption, the gas feeds the BH at a highly super-Eddington rate; i.e., radiation pressure in the flow is strong compared to the BH's gravity. During this phase, radiation pressure likely drives gas back outwards in a wind and produces a large optical luminosity and characteristic spectrum of blueshifted absorption lines. In some cases, magnetic fields may drive a relativistic jet as well, bright in radio and hard X-rays. Then weeks to months later, the BH feeding rate falls to sub-Eddington, and should produce a radiative accretion disk, bright in soft X-rays to ultraviolet. A few years or more after that, the feeding rate falls below $\sim$0.01 of the Eddington rate, and the flow may transition to a radiatively inefficient disk, perhaps accompanied once again by a jet. I will review panchromatic predictions for emission signatures from all of these structures, discuss their observability in new and upcoming transient surveys, and compare with observations of tidal disruption event candidates so far. [Preview Abstract] |
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