THE ZWICKY TRANSIENT FACILITY (ZTF) IS POISED TO PRODUCE THE FIRST STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT SAMPLE OF TIDAL DISRUPTION EVENTS (TDES) FROM A SINGLE SURVEY WITH A PROJECTED DISCOVERY RATE OF"' 30 TOES PER YEAR. THIS ZTF TOE SAMPLE WILL ENABLE A ROBUST MEASUREMENT OF THE TOE RATE AND A MAPPING OF TOE LIGHT CURVES TO PHYSICAL PARAMETERS SUCH AS CENTRAL BLACK HOLE MASS. HOWEVER DESPITE THIS EXCITING PROGRESS IN ASSEMBLING A LARGE SAMPLE OF TDES THE NATURE OF THE OPTICAL EMISSION REMAINS A MYSTERY AND APPEARS TO BE DISTINCT FROM THE SOFT X-RAY COMPONENT (KT"' 0.05 KEV) ASSOCIATED WITH THE ACCRETION OF THE STELLAR DEBRIS THROUGH A NEWLY FORMED DISK. ONE OF THE PHYSICAL MODELS THAT IS GAINING GROUND IS THAT THE OPTICAL COMPONENT ORIGINATES FROM A LARGER-SCALE STRUCTURE ASSOCIATED WITH STREAM-STREAM COLLISIONS OF THE BOUND STELLAR DEBRIS. IF CORRECT THEN THIS MODEL PREDICTS A CHARACTERISTIC TIME DELAY BETWEEN THE PROMPT OPTICAL EMISSION AND THE SUBSEQUENT ACCRETION LUMINOSITY IN THE SOFT X-RAYS THAT DEPENDS BOTH ON THE CIRCULARIZATION EFFICIENCY AND VISCOUS INFLOW TIME. WITH THIS XMM-NEWTON PROGRAM WE AIM TO MEASURE EVOLUTION OF THE OPTICAL TO X-RAY RATIO ON THESE CHARACTERISTIC TIMESCALES FOR A LARGE SAMPLE OF TDES DISCOVERED PROMPTLY AFTER DISRUPTION FOR THE FIRST TIME.
$77,190FY2020National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationNASA
University Of Maryland, College Park, College Park MD