Tidal Disruption Events from three-body scatterings and eccentricity pumping in the disks of Active Galactic Nuclei

Understand

Tidal Disruption Events (TDEs) are routinely observed in quiescent galaxies, as stars from the nuclear star cluster are scattered into the loss cone of the central supermassive black hole (SMBH).

• TDEs are also expected to occur in Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), due to scattering or orbital eccentricity pumping of stars embedded in the innermost regions of the AGN accretion disk.
• Encounters with embedded stellar-mass black holes (BH) can result in AGN $\mu$TDEs.
• AGN TDEs and $\mu$TDEs could therefore account for a fraction of observed AGN variability.