Tidal Disruption Events As Transient Probes of Black Hole Accretion and Demographics

Jane Lixin Dai (University of Hong Kong)

November 25, 2021

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Abstract: Tidal disruption events (TDEs), in which stars are torn apart by the tidal force from massive black holes, provide good opportunities for probing massive black hole demographics. Furthermore, TDEs are ideal laboratories for studying black hole accretion and jet physics. In this talk, I will first give a brief summary of the theory of TDEs, followed by some questions posed by current observations. Then I will focus on our latest work on connecting theory to observations, such as why TDEs produce different types of emissions, why initially optically-strong TDEs produce more X-rays at late times, and how we can use TDEs to constrain the mass function of massive black holes.