Tidal Disruption of Stars by Massive Black Holes in Galaxy Nuclei: After the Flare

Details Tidal Disruption of Stars by Massive Black Holes in Galaxy Nuclei: After the Flare Tidal Disruption of Stars by Massive Black Holes in Galaxy Nuclei: After the Flare

Jul 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001hst..prop.9177h&link_type=abstract

HST Proposal ID #9177

Physics

Hst Proposal Id #9177 Galaxies

Scientific paper

A supermassive black hole will rip apart a star that strays within its tidal radius, causing an Eddington-limited UV/X-ray flare for several months as the orbiting debris accretes. While such events are predicted to occur at most once in 10^4 yr per galaxy, an experiment was performed in 1990-91 which sampled hundreds of thousands of galaxies in the ideal wavelength band, i.e., the ROSAT All-Sky Survey. Three galaxies had unusual X-ray flares, but no evidence for nuclear activity in ground-based spectra. To establish beyond a reasonable doubt that these were tidal disruption events, we propose to make a sensitive search for permanent Seyfert activity, the only possible alternative to the disruption hypothesis. Nuclear optical spectra obtained through a narrow slit will reject most of the starlight and place limits on AGN-like emission line activity below those of the weakest Seyferts. If necessary, we could return over the next decade to ensure that any weak emission lines are decaying. Establishing the UV/X-ray properties of genuine tidal disruption events is important for the next generation of sky surveys that will monitor millions of galaxies. Growing evidence that supermassive black holes are ubiquitous in galaxy nuclei means that the frequency of tidal disruption as a function of galaxy mass and type could be determined. Masses of black holes could be studied by monitoring the outburst light curves and the spectra of the tidal debris.

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