March 8, 2023

Partial stellar tidal disruption events and their rates

Bortolas, Elisa; Ryu, Taeho; Broggi, Luca; Sesana, Alberto. Tidal disruption events (TDEs) of stars operated by massive black holes (MBHs) will be detected in thousands by upcoming facilities such as the Vera Rubin Observatory. In this work, we assess the rates of standard total TDEs, destroying the entire star, and partial TDEs, in which a stellar remnant survives the interaction, by solving 1-D Fokker-Planck equations. Our rate estimates are based on a novel definition of the loss cone whose size is commensurate to the largest radius at which partial disruptions can occur, as motivated by relativistic hydrodynamical simulations.

May 12, 2022

Extreme mass ratio inspirals and tidal disruption events in nuclear clusters - I. Time-dependent rates

Broggi, Luca; Bortolas, Elisa; Bonetti, Matteo; Sesana, Alberto; Dotti, Massimo. In this paper, we develop a computationally efficient, two-population, time-dependent Fokker–Plank approach in the two dimensions of energy and angular momentum to study the rates of tidal disruption events (TDEs), extreme mass ratio inspirals (EMRIs), and direct plunges occurring around massive black holes (MBHs) in galactic nuclei. We test our code by exploring a wide range of the astrophysically relevant parameter space, including MBH masses, galaxy central densities, and inner density slopes.