Challenges in the modeling of tidal disruption events lightcurves

• Main Author: Lodato G.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: EDP Sciences 2012-12-01
• Series: EPJ Web of Conferences
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/20123901001

In this contribution, I review the recent developments on the modeling of the lightcurve of tidal disruption events. Our understanding has evolved significantly from the earlier seminal results that imply a simple power-law decay of the bolometric light curve as t−5/3. We now know that the details of the rise to the peak of the lightcurve is determined mainly by the internal structure of the disrupted star. We also have improved models for the disc thermal emission, showing that in this case the decline of the luminosity with time should be much flatter than the standard t−5/3 law, especially in optical and UV wavelengths, while the X-ray lightcurve is generally best suited to track the bolometric one. Finally, we are just starting to explore the interesting general relativistic effects that might arise for such events, for which the tidal radius lies very close to the black hole event horizon.