A Unified Theory of Jetted Tidal Disruption Events: From Promptly Escaping Relativistic to Delayed Transrelativistic Jets

Only a tiny fraction ~1% of stellar tidal disruption events (TDEs) generate powerful relativistic jets evidenced by luminous hard X-ray and radio emissions. We propose that a key property responsible for both this surprisingly low rate and a variety of other observations is the typically large misalignment ψ between the orbital plane of the star and the spin axis of the supermassive black hole (SMBH). Such misaligned disk/jet systems undergo Lense-Thirring precession together about the SMBH spin axis. We find that TDE disks precess sufficiently rapidly that winds from the accretion disk will encase the system on large scales in a quasi-spherical outflow. We derive the critical jet efficiency η > η _crit for both aligned and misaligned precessing jets to successfully escape from the disk wind ejecta. As η _crit is higher for precessing jets, less powerful jets only escape after alignment with the SMBH spin. Alignment can occur through magneto-spin or hydrodynamic mechanisms, which we estimate occur on typical timescales of weeks and years, respectively. The dominant mechanism depends on η and the orbital penetration factor β. Hence, depending only on the intrinsic parameters of the event {ψ, η, β}, we propose that each TDE jet can either escape prior to alignment, thus exhibiting an erratic X-ray light curve and two-component radio afterglow (e.g., Swift J1644+57), or escape after alignment. Relatively rapid magneto-spin alignments produce relativistic jets exhibiting X-ray power-law decay and bright afterglows (e.g., AT2022cmc), while long hydrodynamic alignments give rise to late jet escape and delayed radio flares (e.g., AT2018hyz).