ABSTRACT
Tidal disruption events (TDEs) are among the most fascinating astronomical phenomena, offering a unique probe into the properties of massive black holes and the nuclear environments of galaxies. In this talk, I will first give an introduction to TDEs and highlight their unique potential as probes of massive black hole properties and galactic nuclear environments. I will then present state-of-the-art simulations of TDE accretion, outflows, and emission, illustrating how these processes generate the observed diversity of emission signatures. Finally, I will discuss the broader implications of TDEs for black hole growth, particularly in the early Universe, and their role in shaping galactic evolution. By exploring these results, we can better understand the physics of TDEs and their critical role in the growth of black holes and the evolution of galaxies across cosmic time.
BIOGRAPHY
Lixin Dai is an associate professor in the Department of Physics of the University of Hong Kong. Prof. Dai received her B.S. in Physics and Mathematics from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Physics from Stanford University. She was a joint postdoc fellow at the Yale University and University of Chile, and then a research associate at the University of Maryland. She joined the University of Copenhagen as an assistant professor before joining the University of Hong Kong. Her research interests are mainly in theoretical and computational high-energy and time-domain astrophysics, with a focus on black hole accretion disks and jets, tidal disruption events and other nuclear transients, and their connections to galaxies. She currently co-chairs the TDE & AGN science topical panel of the Einstein Probe Telescope.
Associate Professor, University of Hong Kong
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