Rate Enhancement of Tidal Disruption Events in Post-Starburst Galaxies
- Event Type
- Seminar/Symposium
- Sponsor
- Department of Astronomy
- Location
- 134 Astronomy Building
- Virtual
- Join online
- Date
- Dec 2, 2024 12:00 - 1:00 pm
- Speaker
- Margaret Shepherd
- Contact
- Daniel Franco
- danielf9@illinois.edu
- Phone
- 217-300-6769
- Views
- 3
- Originating Calendar
- Astronomy Journal Club
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.