Abstract for Proposal 084378
Probing accretion onto black holes using tidal disruption events
While compact objects undergoing regular, long-term accretion (such as
normal AGN) are common, extreme transient accretion events associated
with the tidal disruption of a star provide a novel way to probe both
the physics of accretion and black holes. These tidal disruption events
(TDEs) emit across the electromagnetic spectrum, with a significant part
of this emission falling in the X-ray energy band. Here, we propose to
perform three deep XMM-Newton observations of an X-ray bright TDE as
discovered or detected by the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae
(ASAS-SN). Complemented by high cadence Swift XRT/UVOT, our proposed
XMM-Newton observations will allow us to characterise how the X-ray
emission from this event changes in both the initial stages of its
evolution.
Details on Observing Strategy and Trigger Criteria
For us to trigger our XMM-Newton TOO, we require the TDE to have an
absorbed flux of Fx(0.3- 10.0 keV)>2e-13 erg cm^-2 s^-1, which will
derived using Swift observations of the source.
We request the first of our observations to be taken with 10-20 days
of discovery, with the second of our observations to be taken within
~2 months after discovery and the next taken within ~6 months after
discovery.