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arxiv 1801.08221 v3 pith:7QBRY2T6 submitted 2018-01-24 astro-ph.HE astro-ph.GA

Weighing Black Holes using Tidal Disruption Events

classification astro-ph.HE astro-ph.GA
keywords eventsstarsblackdisruptionfindobservationstidalcompare
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
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While once rare, observations of stars being tidally disrupted by supermassive black holes are quickly becoming commonplace. To continue to learn from these events it is necessary to robustly and systematically compare our growing number of observations with theory. We present a tidal disruption module for the Modular Open Source Fitter for Transients (MOSFiT) and the results from fitting 14 tidal disruption events (TDEs). Our model uses FLASH simulations of TDEs to generate bolometric luminosities and passes these luminosities through viscosity and reprocessing transformation functions to create multi-wavelength light curves. It then uses an MCMC fitting routine to compare these theoretical light curves with observations. We find that none of the events show evidence for viscous delays exceeding a few days, supporting the theory that our current observing strategies in the optical/UV are missing a significant number of viscously delayed flares. We find that the events have black hole masses of $10^6 - 10^8 M_{\odot}$, and that the masses we predict are as reliable as those based on bulk galaxy properties. We also find that there is a preference for stars with mass $< 1 M_{\odot}$, as expected when low-mass stars greatly outnumber high-mass stars.

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Cited by 4 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score.

  1. TDEs on FIRE: Illuminating the Cosmic Evolution of Tidal Disruption Rates

    astro-ph.HE 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 7.0

    FIRE-2 simulations show per-galaxy tidal disruption rates peak near z=2.5 at 4e-4 per year, correlate with SFR and central density, and remain high in satellite galaxies at early times.

  2. Are most detected tidal disruption events partial?

    astro-ph.HE 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 6.0

    SPH simulations of zero-energy partial TDEs find fallback ~t^{-9/4}, optical luminosities 10^{42-44} erg/s at 10^4 K and radii 10-100 au, indicating many detected TDEs may be partial rather than full.

  3. Mapping the nuclear environments of extreme coronal line emitting galaxies

    astro-ph.GA 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 6.0

    Multi-epoch spectroscopy of 33 ECLEs shows coronal lines emitted at intermediate radii with log(distance)-log(black hole mass) slopes of 0.63 and 0.69 for [O III] and [Fe VII], consistent with photoionization setting ...

  4. Unveiling the properties of galaxy cores excavated by supermassive black hole binaries with SHARP

    astro-ph.GA 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 4.0

    Next-generation IFU instruments could detect core scouring and tangential anisotropy from MBH binaries up to z~0.14 for ~150 pc cores and higher redshifts for larger cores, expanding searchable volume by 30-40 times i...