X-ray observations of Tidal Disruption Events
Abstract
The disruption of a star from the strong tidal forces of a supermassive black hole can cause the stellar debris to fall back towards the black hole at super Eddington rates. Efficient circularization of the debris can lead to the formation of an accretion disc with luminosities close to or potentially exceeding Eddington limit. Most super-Eddington accretion flow models (including recent magnetohydrodynamic simulations) predict large scale height, optically thick equatorial winds at relativistic velocities. In this talk, I will give an overview of X-ray observations of tidal disruption events. In particular, I will present observational results from two of the most well-observed X-ray emitting TDEs, Swift J1644+57 and ASASSN-14li. Both of these objects show evidence for massive outflows at tens of percent of the speed of light. The outflow in Swift J1644+57 was detected via blue shifted emission and reverberation of the iron K alpha line, and ASASSN-14li shows a potential P Cygni profile of the OVIII line. I will discuss how these and other X-ray observations are putting constraints on super-Eddington accretion flows of TDEs.
- Publication:
-
42nd COSPAR Scientific Assembly
- Pub Date:
- July 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018cosp...42E1680K