2020/03/19 by Nicholas C. Stone, Eugene Vasiliev, Michael Kesden +3 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #astro-ph.HE #astro-ph.GA #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/s11214-020-00651-4
Accepted for publication in Springer Space Science Reviews. Chapter in ISSI review, "The Tidal Disruption of Stars by Massive Black Holes," vol. 79
arxiv created 2020/03/19 · arxiv updated 2020/04/01
Tidal disruption events occur rarely in any individual galaxy. Over the last decade, however, time-domain surveys have begun to accumulate statistical samples of these flares. What dynamical processes are responsible for feeding stars to supermassive black holes? At what rate are stars tidally disrupted in realistic galactic nuclei? What may we learn about supermassive black holes and broader astrophysical questions by estimating tidal disruption event rates from observational samples of flares? These are the questions we aim to address in this Chapter, which summarizes current theoretical knowledge about rates of stellar tidal disruption, and compares theoretical predictions to the current state of observations.