XMM-Newton Observations of Tidal Disruption Events

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 that emits in X-rays at luminosities close to or exceeding the Eddington limit. In its 20 years of operations, XMM-Newton has made invaluable contributions to our understanding of tidal disruption events, thanks to its large effective area, good sensitivity, high spectral resolution, and willingness to follow-up evolving transients. In this review, I will highlight some of these break-throughs, including the discovery of ultrafast outflows, high-frequency quasi-periodic oscillations and, most recently, the evolution of a tidal disruption event candidate in an already active galactic nucleus.