自由探索组知识库

黑洞潮汐瓦解恒星事件(Tidal Disruption Events,TDE)是星系中心黑洞瓦解进入其潮汐瓦解半径内的恒星并吸积恒星碎片物质而产生的一种剧烈辐射耀发现象.TDE的能谱和光变特征中蕴含了中心黑洞和被瓦解的恒星的信息,为我们证实和普查宁静星系中的黑洞,研究其参数、吸积过程和喷流产生、以及核区星际介质等提供了可能.TDE还可能提供中等质量黑洞和双黑洞存在的证据.TDE的观测和理论已成为一个新开辟的天体物理研究领域,但目前的进展受制于探测到事件太少(尤其是在X射线波段),且观测数据普遍质量不高.TDE的发生率很低,要探测大样本的事例需要监测足够大的空间体积.爱因斯坦探针卫星(Einstein Probe,EP)覆盖了0.5–4 keV的软X射线波段(接近TDE耀发时的辐射峰值能段),具有大视场以及高灵敏度,非常利于对TDE的探测.预期爱因斯坦探针卫星每年可以发现约几十至上百例TDE,其中有约10例或更多具有相对论性喷流特征.这将使我们可以获得较为完备、具有统计意义的TDE的样本,为进一步研究黑洞的存在和统计性质、增长和演化、发现中等质量黑洞和大质量双黑洞等提供了新的途径.

When a star enters the tidal radius of a massive black hole (BH) at the center of a galaxy, the tidal force will rip the star apart. The BH may accrete the debris of the star and produce energetic flare. This phenomenon is now commonly known as Tidal Disruption Event (TDE). The characteristics of its spectra as well as variability are dependent on the properties of the central BH and the disrupted star, so that we can study their parameters, accretion process and jet, and the property of circumnuclear environment by confirming and systematically studying the BH in quiescent galaxies. TDE may also provide important clues on the existence of intermediate BH as well as supermassive BH binary. However, the study of TDE is hindered by relatively small sample size (especially in X-ray band) and low quality of data due to the low incident rate. The Einstein Probe (EP), which covers the 0.5–4 keV soft X-ray energy band, has a large field of view as well as high sensitivity, making it perfect to detect TDE. We expect that EP will detect several tens to about one hundred TDE every year, of which around 10 or even more are TDE with relativistic jet. This will result in a homogeneously selected completely TDE sample, which is important for investigating the statistical property of TDE. It makes it possible to investigate the existence and statistical property of BH, explore the growth and evolution of BH, discovery the intermediate BH as well as supermassive BH binaries.