Dormant Black Holes

Abstract

The growth of supermassive black holes is intermittent, having periods of low accretion when no nuclear activity is seen in the center of the host galaxy. In such dormant state black holes may tidally disrupt stars scattered from the bulge to inside their influence sphere. The resulting debris are partially captured by the black hole forming a short-lived accretion disk, which produces a variable emission dubbed “tidal flare”. Some galaxies candidate to have hosted these tidal events are here considered.