A New Way to Study Massive Black Holes in Galaxies

R. Di Stefano(CfA), J. Greiner (AIP. Potsdam), S. Murray , M. Garcia (CfA)

Abstract

We point out that the tidal disruption of a giant may leave a luminous ( 10³⁵-10³⁹ erg/s), hot (10-100 eV) stellar core. The ``supersoft" source (SSS) detected by Chandra at the center of M31 (Garcia et al. 2000) may be such a core; whether or not it is, the observations have shown that such a core is detectable, even in the center of a galaxy. We therefore explore the range of expected observational signatures, and how they may be used to (1) test the hypothesis that the M31 source is a remnant of tidal stripping, and (2) discover evidence of black holess and disruption events in other galaxies.

CATEGORY: NORMAL GALAXIES