Abstract Sixiang Wen

Title: Modeling X-ray Emission from Tidal Disruption Events

Abstract:

Tidal disruption events (TDEs) provide a unique window into the physics of the supermassive black hole (SMBH) in the center of a galaxy. When a star comes too close to the SMBH, it is broken down by the tidal force. Some of the debris is then accreted by the SMBH. During this accretion process, the gas produces strong electromagnetic radiation. The luminosity and the decay time of the radiation are sensitive to the properties of the SMBH and the victim star. While the theoretical picture of TDE accretion remains incomplete, the underlying physics is more straightforward for those bright in thermal soft X-rays, which should arise from the accretion disk on scales very close to the SMBH horizon. Thus, modeling X-ray emission is one of the most promising routes to understanding the nature of the SMBH and to testing General Relativity. Soon, many more TDEs will be discovered by the next generation of X-ray space telescopes. Therefore, the time is now for new TDE disk models. In this talk, I will discuss our first-principle, fully general relativistic models and the resulting constraints on the SMBH mass and spin.