Rates of stellar tidal disruption as probes of the supermassive black hole mass function
TLDR
In this paper, a large galaxy sample was used to explore the sensitivity of the TDE rates to observational uncertainties, such as the parametrization of galaxy light profiles and the stellar mass function.Abstract:
Rates of stellar tidal disruption events (TDEs) by supermassive black holes (SMBHs) due to two-body relaxation are calculated using a large galaxy sample (N=146) in order to explore the sensitivity of the TDE rates to observational uncertainties, such as the parametrization of galaxy light profiles and the stellar mass function. The largest uncertainty arises due to the poorly constrained occupation fraction of SMBHs in low-mass galaxies, which otherwise dominate the total TDE rate. The detection rate of TDE flares by optical surveys is calculated as a function of SMBH mass and other observables for several physically-motivated models of TDE emission. We also quantify the fraction of galaxies that produce deeply penetrating disruption events. If the majority of the detected events are characterized by super-Eddington luminosities (such as disk winds, or synchrotron radiation from an off-axis relativistic jet), then the measured SMBH mass distribution will tightly constrain the low-end SMBH occupation fraction. If Eddington-limited emission channels dominate, however, then the occupation fraction sensitivity is much less pronounced in a flux-limited survey (although still present in a volume-complete event sample). The SMBH mass distribution of the current sample of TDEs, though highly inhomogeneous and encumbered by selection effects, already suggests that Eddington-limited emission channels dominate. Even our most conservative rate estimates appear to be in tension with much lower observationally inferred TDE rates, and we discuss several possible resolutions to this discrepancy.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
The Zwicky Transient Facility: Science Objectives
Matthew J. Graham,Shrinivas R. Kulkarni,Eric C. Bellm,Scott M. Adams,Cristina Barbarino,Nadejda Blagorodnova,Dennis Bodewits,Bryce Bolin,Patrick Brady,S. Bradley Cenko,Chan-Kao Chang,Michael W. Coughlin,Kaushik De,Gwendolyn Eadie,Tony L. Farnham,Ulrich Feindt,Anna Franckowiak,Christoffer Fremling,Avishay Gal-Yam,Suvi Gezari,Sourav Ghosh,Daniel A. Goldstein,V. Zach Golkhou,Ariel Goobar,Anna Y. Q. Ho,Daniela Huppenkothen,Zeljko Ivezic,R. Lynne Jones,Mario Juric,David L. Kaplan,Mansi M. Kasliwal,Michael S. P. Kelley,Thomas Kupfer,Chien-De Lee,Hsing Wen Lin,Ragnhild Lunnan,Ashish Mahabal,Adam A. Miller,Chow-Choong Ngeow,Peter Nugent,Eran O. Ofek,Thomas A. Prince,L. Rauch,Jan van Roestel,Steve Schulze,Leo Singer,Jesper Sollerman,Francesco Taddia,Lin Yan,Quanzhi Ye,Po-Chieh Yu,Igor Andreoni,Tom A. Barlow,James M. Bauer,Ron Beck,Justin Belicki,Rahul Biswas,V. Brinnel,Tim Brooke,Brian D. Bue,Mattia Bulla,Kevin B. Burdge,Rick Burruss,Andrew J. Connolly,John Cromer,Virginia Cunningham,Richard Dekany,Alex Delacroix,Vandana Desai,Dmitry A. Duev,Eugean Hacopians,David Hale,George Helou,John Henning,David Hover,Lynne A. Hillenbrand,Justin Howell,Tiara Hung,David Imel,Wing-Huen Ip,Edward Jackson,Shai Kaspi,Stephen Kaye,Marek Kowalski,Emily Kramer,Michael A. Kuhn,Walter Landry,Russ R. Laher,Peter H. Mao,Frank J. Masci,Serge Monkewitz,Patrick J. Murphy,J. Nordin,Maria T. Patterson,Bryan E. Penprase,Michael Porter,Umaa Rebbapragada,Daniel J. Reiley,Reed Riddle,Mickael Rigault,Hector P. Rodriguez,Ben Rusholme,J. V. Santen,David L. Shupe,Roger M. H. Smith,Maayane T. Soumagnac,Robert Stein,Jason Surace,Paula Szkody,Scott Terek,Angela Van Sistine,Sjoert van Velzen,W. Thomas Vestrand,Richard Walters,Charlotte Ward,Chaoran Zhang,Jeffry Zolkower +116 more
TL;DR: The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) as discussed by the authors is a new time domain survey employing a dedicated camera on the Palomar 48-inch Schmidt telescope with a 47 deg$^2$ field of view and 8 second readout time.
Journal ArticleDOI
Assisted inspirals of stellar mass black holes embedded in AGN discs: solving the ‘final au problem’
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the evolution of stellar mass black hole binaries (BHBs) which are formed in the self-gravitating disks of active galactic nuclei (AGN).
Journal ArticleDOI
Six months of multiwavelength follow-up of the tidal disruption candidate asassn-14li and implied tde rates from asas-sn
Thomas W.-S. Holoien,Christopher S. Kochanek,J. L. Prieto,J. L. Prieto,Krzysztof Z. Stanek,Subo Dong,Benjamin J. Shappee,Dirk Grupe,J. S. Brown,U. Basu,John F. Beacom,D. Bersier,J. Brimacombe,A. B. Danilet,E. E. Falco,Zhen Guo,Jessy Jose,Gregory J. Herczeg,Feng Long,G. Pojmanski,G. V. Simonian,D. M. Szczygiel,Todd A. Thompson,John R. Thorstensen,R. M. Wagner,R. M. Wagner,Przemysław Woźniak +26 more
TL;DR: In this article, ground-based and Swift photometric and spectroscopic observations of the candidate tidal disruption event (TDE) ASASSN-14li, found at the center of PGC043234 (d'90 Mpc) by the All-Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN).
Journal ArticleDOI
The Zwicky Transient Facility: Science Objectives
Matthew J. Graham,Shrinivas R. Kulkarni,Eric C. Bellm,Scott M. Adams,Cristina Barbarino,Nadejda Blagorodnova,Dennis Bodewits,Dennis Bodewits,Bryce Bolin,Patrick Brady,S. Bradley Cenko,S. Bradley Cenko,Chan-Kao Chang,Michael W. Coughlin,Kaushik De,Gwendolyn Eadie,Tony L. Farnham,Ulrich Feindt,Anna Franckowiak,Christoffer Fremling,Suvi Gezari,Suvi Gezari,Sourav Ghosh,Daniel A. Goldstein,V. Zach Golkhou,Ariel Goobar,Anna Y. Q. Ho,Daniela Huppenkothen,Željko Ivezić,R. Lynne Jones,Mario Juric,David L. Kaplan,Mansi M. Kasliwal,Michael S. P. Kelley,Thomas Kupfer,Thomas Kupfer,Chien De Lee,Hsing Wen Lin,Hsing Wen Lin,Ragnhild Lunnan,Ashish Mahabal,Adam A. Miller,Adam A. Miller,Chow-Choong Ngeow,Peter Nugent,Peter Nugent,Eran O. Ofek,Thomas A. Prince,L. Rauch,Jan van Roestel,Steve Schulze,Leo Singer,Leo Singer,Jesper Sollerman,Francesco Taddia,Lin Yan,Quanzhi Ye,Po-Chieh Yu,Tom A. Barlow,James Bauer,Ron Beck,Justin Belicki,Rahul Biswas,V. Brinnel,Tim Brooke,Brian D. Bue,Mattia Bulla,Rick Burruss,Andrew J. Connolly,John Cromer,Virginia Cunningham,Richard Dekany,Alex Delacroix,Vandana Desai,Dmitry A. Duev,Michael Feeney,David Flynn,Sara Frederick,Avishay Gal-Yam,Matteo Giomi,Steven Groom,Eugean Hacopians,David Hale,George Helou,John Henning,David Hover,Lynne A. Hillenbrand,Justin Howell,Tiara Hung,David Imel,Wing-Huen Ip,Wing-Huen Ip,Edward Jackson,Shai Kaspi,Stephen Kaye,Marek Kowalski,E. A. Kramer,Michael A. Kuhn,Walter Landry,Russ R. Laher,Peter H. Mao,Frank J. Masci,Serge Monkewitz,Patrick J. Murphy,Jakob Nordin,Maria T. Patterson,Bryan E. Penprase,Michael Porter,Umaa Rebbapragada,Daniel J. Reiley,Reed Riddle,Mickael Rigault,Hector Rodriguez,Ben Rusholme,J. V. Santen,David L. Shupe,Roger M. H. Smith,Maayane T. Soumagnac,Robert Stein,Jason Surace,Paula Szkody,Scott Terek,Angela Van Sistine,Sjoert van Velzen,W. Thomas Vestrand,Richard Walters,Charlotte Ward,Chaoran Zhang,Jeffry Zolkower +128 more
TL;DR: The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) as mentioned in this paper is a new time-domain survey employing a dedicated camera on the Palomar 48-inch Schmidt telescope with a 47 deg^2 field of view and an 8 second readout time.
Journal ArticleDOI
The superluminous transient ASASSN-15lh as a tidal disruption event from a Kerr black hole
Giorgos Leloudas,Giorgos Leloudas,Morgan Fraser,Nicholas C. Stone,S. van Velzen,Peter G. Jonker,Peter G. Jonker,Iair Arcavi,Iair Arcavi,Christoffer Fremling,Justyn R. Maund,Stephen J. Smartt,T. Krìhler,James Miller-Jones,P. M. Vreeswijk,Avishay Gal-Yam,Paolo A. Mazzali,Paolo A. Mazzali,A. De Cia,D. A. Howell,D. A. Howell,Cosimo Inserra,Ferdinando Patat,A. de Ugarte Postigo,A. de Ugarte Postigo,O. Yaron,Chris Ashall,I. Bar,Heather Campbell,Heather Campbell,Ting-Wan Chen,M. Childress,Nancy Elias-Rosa,Jussi Harmanen,Griffin Hosseinzadeh,Griffin Hosseinzadeh,Joel Johansson,Tuomas Kangas,Erkki Kankare,S. Kim,Hanindyo Kuncarayakti,Hanindyo Kuncarayakti,J. D. Lyman,M. R. Magee,Kate Maguire,D. Malesani,Seppo Mattila,Seppo Mattila,Curtis McCully,Curtis McCully,Matt Nicholl,S. J. Prentice,C. Romero-Canizales,C. Romero-Canizales,Steve Schulze,Steve Schulze,K. W. Smith,Jesper Sollerman,Mark Sullivan,Brad E. Tucker,S. Valenti,John C Wheeler,David Young +62 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors show that a star with the same mass as the Sun could be disrupted outside the event horizon if the black hole were spinning rapidly, and the rapid spin and high black hole mass can explain the high luminosity of this event.
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