Measuring stellar and black hole masses of tidal disruption events

Understand

The flare produced when a star is tidally disrupted by a supermassive black hole holds potential as a diagnostic of both the black hole mass and the star mass.

• We propose a new method to realize this potential based upon a physical model of optical/UV light production in which shocks near the apocenters of debris orbits dissipate orbital energy, which is then radiated from that region.
• Measurement of the optical/UV luminosity and color temperature at the peak of the flare leads directly to the two masses.
• The black hole mass depends mostly on the temperature observed at peak luminosity, while the mass of the disrupted star depends mostly on the peak luminosity.