Building 421
auditorium 73
Title: Tidal disruptions of stars by supermassive black holes
Abstract:
When a star wanders too close to the supermassive black hole in the centre of its host galaxy, tidal forces tear the star apart, and the messy debris it leaves behind leads to fascinating observational consequences. Modern optical sky surveys now find a luminous flare from one of these destructions about once per month, enabling rapid follow-up to understand the details of the disruption. In this talk, I will show the latest observations of these tidal disruption events, how they can be used to measure the properties of otherwise dormant supermassive black holes, and look ahead to the prospects for discovery with new multi-messenger searches and the Vera Rubin Observatory.
