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Rate Enhancement of Tidal Disruption Events in Post-Starburst Galaxies

Event Type
Seminar/Symposium
Sponsor
Department of Astronomy
Location
134 Astronomy Building
Virtual
wifi event
Date
Dec 2, 2024   12:00 - 1:00 pm  
Speaker
Margaret Shepherd
Contact
Daniel Franco
E-Mail
danielf9@illinois.edu
Phone
217-300-6769
Views
1

To investigate the stellar environment around supermassive black holes, we study a sample of tidal disruption event (TDE) host galaxies with optical spectra. We aim to find out which characteristics of the host galaxy’s environment; such as the stellar profile, gas structure, and kinematics in the galactic center; determine the rate of TDE occurrence, and why the TDE rate is enhanced in post-starburst (PSB) galaxies. We create a catalog of TDE hosts with spectra from literature and archival data, and fit the spectra using a two-component star formation history with Bagpipes in order to determine the TDE rate as a function of time since a burst of star formation occurred. We make a detailed comparison between the TDE rate as a function of age with various models for TDE rate enhancements, and find that more theoretical work is needed to explain the TDE rate enhancement in PSB galaxies.

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