Observational signatures of warped accretion flows in tidal disruption events
Abstract
We analyze the possible observational signatures and evolution of global warps in the accretion flows produced in tidal disruption events. These warps are driven by Lense-Thirring torques resulting from the misalignment of the disk's rotation axis and the black hole's spin axis. In a previous paper we argued that these global warps should be generically present in TDE accretion flows as they enter a late-time thin disk phase of evolution. We isolate three possible observational signatures of warps: (i) anomalous (reddened) late time optical colors, resulting from irradiative heating of the warped outer disk by the inner flow, (ii) delayed X-ray rises, resulting from the inner disk being slowly revealed to a distant observer as the warped flow gradually aligns with the spin axis, and (iii) reverberation of turbulent X-ray flares into optical/UV frequencies as the inner disk heats the outer disk during a flaring state. We present preliminary observational evidence that all three effects may have already been observed in TDE systems. Observations of TDEs may well offer the cleanest astronomical signatures of the strong-gravity effects which cause disk warping, and provide unique constraints on the poorly understood evolution of warped accretion disks.
Related
- Time-dependent Accretion Disks in Tidal Disruption Events: Long-term Light Curves
- Hidden engines in tidal disruption events: multimessenger signatures in a lepto-hadronic framework
- Time-Domain Dust Astrophysics. II. TransRAT: Time-Dependent Grain Alignment and Disruption by Cosmic Transients and Their Observational Signatures
- Semi-Analytic Solutions For Warped, Super-Eddington Accretion Disks with Outflows
- Quasi-periodic eruption spectral-timing: EMRIs crossing warped accretion disks
BibTeX
@misc{mummery2026observational,
title = {{Observational signatures of warped accretion flows in tidal disruption events}},
author = {Andrew Mummery and Eliot Quataert},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.29787},
eprint = {2609.29787},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.29787},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Observational signatures of warped accretion flows in tidal disruption events
AU - Andrew Mummery
AU - Eliot Quataert
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/24
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.29787
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.29787
AB - We analyze the possible observational signatures and evolution of global warps in the accretion flows produced in tidal disruption events. These warps are driven by Lense-Thirring torques resulting from the misalignment of the disk's rotation axis and the black hole's spin axis. In a previous paper we argued that these global warps should be generically present in TDE accretion flows as they enter a late-time thin disk phase of evolution. We isolate three possible observational signatures of warps: (i) anomalous (reddened) late time optical colors, resulting from irradiative heating of the warped outer disk by the inner flow, (ii) delayed X-ray rises, resulting from the inner disk being slowly revealed to a distant observer as the warped flow gradually aligns with the spin axis, and (iii) reverberation of turbulent X-ray flares into optical/UV frequencies as the inner disk heats the outer disk during a flaring state. We present preliminary observational evidence that all three effects may have already been observed in TDE systems. Observations of TDEs may well offer the cleanest astronomical signatures of the strong-gravity effects which cause disk warping, and provide unique constraints on the poorly understood evolution of warped accretion disks.
ER -