Title: Total Disruption Events: Using a Violent Demise to Study Extreme Environments
Abstract:
A Tidal Disruption Event (TDE) occurs when a star wanders too close to a supermassive black hole (SMBH) and is unbound by tidal forces. Studying TDEs can allow us to learn not just about the event itself, but also about the outflows and shockwaves they create and the environment surrounding a previously quiescent black hole. In this talk, I will give an overview of TDE observations, primarily focusing on the radio, and a summary of where the field stands today. I will begin with Swift J1644+57, the best-studied example of a TDE which launched a relativistic jet beamed directly at Earth, which make up just ~1% of all TDEs. I will then highlight the example of a non-relativistic TDE, AT2019dsg, and new radio observations that shed additional light on a claimed neutrino association with this source. Finally, I will introduce a newly discovered class of TDE where emission begins years after the initial TDE event itself, some of which appear to be associated with mildly relativistic outflows launched years after the initial disruption and might make up the majority of the radio TDE population.
Speaker: Yvette Cendes (CfA)
Image Description and Credit: Artist's conception of a tidal disruption event, which is when a star is torn apart by a black hole. (NASA/CXC/M. Weiss)
