Revision 1

Superseded · first revision · record

Title: Where is the missing radiated energy of tidal disruption events?
Plain: If half the torn star falls into the black hole, the flare should release one hundred to one thousand times more energy than is seen. The missing energy may escape in light that is hard to observe, in winds, or into the black hole.
Precise: Accreting about $0.5\,M_{\mathrm{sun}}$ with radiative efficiency 0.1 releases of order 1e53 erg, while observed optical and UV TDEs radiate about 1e50 to 1e51 erg. Determine where the remainder goes: extreme-UV emission, slow accretion over years, kinetic energy of outflows, advection into the black hole, or a smaller accreted mass.
Settled by: A bolometric energy budget from extreme-UV inferred line ratios, late-time X-ray and UV monitoring, and radio outflow energies for a sample of TDEs.
Kind: well-posed
Answer type: value
References: (empty)
Literature status: open
Status note: (empty)
Posed since: (empty)