Characterizing  Massive Black Holes through Stellar Tidal Disruption

A star interacting with a massive black hole cannot be treated as a
point mass if its gets o close to the black hole that it becomes
vulnerable to tidal distortions and even disruption. When a rapidly
changing tidal force starts to compete with a star’s self-gravity, the
material of the star responds on a complicated way. This phenomenon
poses an as yet unmet challenge to computer simulations.  The art of
modeling the tidal disruption of stars by massive black holes forms
the main theme of my talk.  Detailed simulations should tell us what
happen when stars of different types get tidally disrupted, and what
radiation a distant observer might detect as the observational
signature of such events.