Tidal disruptions of stars by supermassive black holes: dynamics, light, and relics

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• James Guillochon (Harvard CfA)
• Monday 09 May 2016, 14:00-15:00
• Physics West 117.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Ilya Mandel.

Most supermassive black holes in the local universe lie dormant, with only one in a hundred accreting at their Eddington limits. Aside from this active minority, and the black holes in nearby galaxies that we can observe to influence the dynamics of stars and gas, most remain difficult to study. Tidal disruptions of stars by supermassive black holes give these dormant black holes a chance to be seen once every ~10,000 years, and each tidal disruption brings along with it a host of observable signatures that can be studied from gigaparsecs away, from the moment of the disruption to millennia after a disruption has occurred. In my talk I will present work I have done on tidal disruptions of stars, and describe their dynamics, observational signatures from real-time monitoring, and relics of disruption that may exist in plain sight.

This talk is part of the Astrophysics Seminars series.

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• Astrophysics Seminars
• Bham Talks
• Physics West 117
• What's on in Physics?

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