Rates of tidal disruption events from constrained cosmological simulations of the local Universe: population properties and implications for transient surveys
Julian S. Sommer, Ildar Khabibullin, Klaus Dolag, Luca Sala, Benjamin Seidel, Jenny G. Sorce, Alice Damiano
astro-ph.HE, astro-ph.GA
Submitted: 2026-07-31
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The gist: (abridged) Motivated by upcoming surveys like LSST, we estimate tidal disruption event (TDE) rates using the constrained cosmological Simulation of the LOcal Web (SLOW) to test the limitations of
Terminology
Abstract
(abridged) Motivated by upcoming surveys like LSST, we estimate tidal disruption event (TDE) rates using the constrained cosmological Simulation of the LOcal Web (SLOW) to test the limitations of traditional 2D analytical extrapolations within a fully 3D framework. We aim to provide reliable TDE budgets extracted from the simulated zoom-in volumes of the digital counterparts of the Coma, Hercules, Shapley, Virgo, and Perseus supercluster environments, and the Fornax galaxy cluster. From the zoom-in boundary volumes of the six environments, reaching radial extents of 55-92, Mpc, we extracted black hole demographics (including spin) and their host galaxy properties to establish a filter scheme that strictly preserves dynamically stable "main-sequence" black holes. We further classified host galaxies as cuspy or cored based on the slope of their 3D stellar density profile measured within 1, kpc as a proxy for unresolved nuclear structure and applied the relativistic Kesden efficiency correction to the filtered sample. We find an average volumetric and per black hole TDE rate of about 600, Gpc-3, yr-1 and about 4.5 times 10-5, yr-1 across all six environments, respectively. Although our absolute TDE rates match early literature estimates, the underlying spatial distribution fundamentally differs. Central core rates are heavily reduced by dynamical depletion and direct capture constraints, meaning the total TDE budget is overwhelmingly dominated by cuspy satellite galaxies in the extended cluster halos. TDE yields are driven by black hole demographics and spatial concentration rather than total cluster mass. Actively assembling superclusters (e.g., Hercules) reduce per-black-hole TDE efficiencies via merger-driven black hole mass growth, whereas low-mass environments (e.g., Fornax) are highly efficient due to unmerged, low-mass black holes.
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