Optical discovery of probable stellar tidal disruption flares

Understand

Using archival SDSS multi-epoch imaging data (Stripe 82), we have searched for the tidal disruption of stars by super-massive black holes in non-active galaxies.

• Two candidate tidal disruption events (TDEs) are identified.
• They have optical black-body temperatures 2 10^4 K and observed peak luminosities M_g=-18.3 and -20.4; their cooling rates are very low, qualitatively consistent with expectations for tidal disruption flares.
• Their properties are examined using i) SDSS imaging to compare them to other flares observed in the search, ii) UV emission measured by GALEX and iii) spectra of the hosts and of one of the flares.