Journal Article

Optical-Ultraviolet Tidal Disruption Events

Hung, Tiara, Onori, Francesca, Holoien, Thomas W.-S., Arcavi, Iair, van Velzen, Sjoert

2020

Overview

The existence of optical-ultraviolet Tidal Disruption Events (TDEs) could be considered surprising because their electromagnetic output was originally predicted to be dominated by X-ray emission from an accretion disk. Yet over the last decade, the growth of optical transient surveys has led to the identification of a new class of optical transients occurring exclusively in galaxy centers, many of which are considered to be TDEs. Here we review the observed properties of these events, identified based on a shared set of both photometric and spectroscopic properties. We present a homogeneous analysis of 33 sources that we classify as robust TDEs, and which we divide into classes. The criteria used here to classify TDEs will possibly get updated as new samples are collected and potential additional diversity of TDEs is revealed. We also summarize current measurements of the optical-ultraviolet TDE rate, as well as the mass function and luminosity function. Many open questions exist regarding the current sample of events. We anticipate that the search for answers will unlock new insights in a variety of fields, from accretion physics to galaxy evolution.

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Accretion disks / Aerospace Technology and Astronautics / Astrophysics and Astroparticles / Classification / Disruption / Galactic evolution / Galaxies / Luminosity / Physics / Physics and Astronomy / Planetology / Space Exploration and Astronautics / Space Sciences (including Extraterrestrial Physics / The Tidal Disruption of Stars by Massive Black Holes / Transients (astronomy) / Ultraviolet astronomy / X-ray emissions