Tidal disruption events (TDEs) occur when stars pass close enough to
supermassive black holes to be torn apart by tidal forces. Traditionally, these
events are studied with computationally intensive hydrodynamical simulations.
In this paper, we present a fast, physically motivated two-stage model for
TDEs. In the first stage, we model the star’s tidal deformation using linear
stellar perturbation theory, treating the star as a collection of driven
harmonic oscillators. When the tidal energy exceeds a fraction $\gamma$ of the
star’s gravitational binding energy (with $\gamma \sim \mathcal{O}(1)$), we
transition to the second stage, where we model the disrupted material as free
particles. The parameter $\gamma$ is determined with a one-time calibration to
hydrodynamical simulations. This method enables fast computation of the energy
distribution $\mathrm{d}M/\mathrm{d}E$ and fallback rate
$\mathrm{d}M/\mathrm{d}T$, while offering physical insight into the disruption
process. We apply our model to MESA-generated profiles of middle-age
main-sequence stars. Our code is available on GitHub.

Questo articolo esplora i giri e le loro implicazioni.

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