Observations of Repeating Tidal Disruption Events
Abstract
The disruption of stars by supermassive black holes (SMBHs) as tidal disruption events (TDEs) can produce transient flares across the electromagnetic spectrum. Such flares can be used to probe SMBH properties, accretion physics and stellar dynamics in galactic nuclei. However, it can be difficult to distinguish TDE flares and those arising from other accretion phenomena around SMBHs, such as active galactic nuclei disk instabilities. Repeated flares from the same location can be produced by either such instabilities or by repeated partial disruptions of the same star, with the former expected to be at random intervals and the latter roughly periodic. Repeating nuclear transients can thus be used to distinguish between full and partial TDEs, as well as between TDEs and other accretion phenomena. Here we review observations of such repeating nuclear flares at various wavelengths. As time domain surveys become wider, deeper and faster, and as they accumulate longer baselines of data, more repeating phenomena at various time scales are being revealed. While these events show the potential for constraining several open questions regarding SMBH accretion phenomena, the small number of cases so far, the limited observational coverage for many of them, and the overall diversity of emission and repetition properties observed make it difficult to robustly associate most cases with physical scenarios at this stage. However, in the near future, as more data accumulate, the nature of various classes of repeating nuclear transients should become more clear, and with it the nature of many of the one-time flares as well.
Related
- HLX-1 as a Repeating Partial Tidal Disruption Event around an Intermediate-Mass Black Hole
- Rates of tidal disruption events from constrained cosmological simulations of the local Universe: population properties and implications for transient surveys
- Tidal Disruption Events on FIRE: Illuminating the Cosmic Evolution of Tidal Disruption Rates
- Observational signatures of warped accretion flows in tidal disruption events
- Compact Object Mergers and Micro-Tidal Disruption Events: A Multi-Messenger Probe of Dense Stellar Environments
BibTeX
@misc{arcavi2026observations,
title = {{Observations of Repeating Tidal Disruption Events}},
author = {Iair Arcavi and Thomas Wevers},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.33809},
eprint = {2609.33809},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.33809},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Observations of Repeating Tidal Disruption Events
AU - Iair Arcavi
AU - Thomas Wevers
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/27
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.33809
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.33809
AB - The disruption of stars by supermassive black holes (SMBHs) as tidal disruption events (TDEs) can produce transient flares across the electromagnetic spectrum. Such flares can be used to probe SMBH properties, accretion physics and stellar dynamics in galactic nuclei. However, it can be difficult to distinguish TDE flares and those arising from other accretion phenomena around SMBHs, such as active galactic nuclei disk instabilities. Repeated flares from the same location can be produced by either such instabilities or by repeated partial disruptions of the same star, with the former expected to be at random intervals and the latter roughly periodic. Repeating nuclear transients can thus be used to distinguish between full and partial TDEs, as well as between TDEs and other accretion phenomena. Here we review observations of such repeating nuclear flares at various wavelengths. As time domain surveys become wider, deeper and faster, and as they accumulate longer baselines of data, more repeating phenomena at various time scales are being revealed. While these events show the potential for constraining several open questions regarding SMBH accretion phenomena, the small number of cases so far, the limited observational coverage for many of them, and the overall diversity of emission and repetition properties observed make it difficult to robustly associate most cases with physical scenarios at this stage. However, in the near future, as more data accumulate, the nature of various classes of repeating nuclear transients should become more clear, and with it the nature of many of the one-time flares as well.
ER -