Most supermassive black holes in the Universe are dormant and starved. Sometimes, unlucky objects like stars or planets, closely approaching black holes, are torn apart by tidal forces. Part of the debris are consumed by the black hole resulting in luminous flares of radiation. 35 years ago, tidal disruption events were predicted to become signposts of super massive black holes at the cores of non-active galaxies, out to high redshifts. They now also provide new probes of strong gravity, and have opened up a new window to study accretion physics and jet formation.

This special session will focus on Sgr A* and on the dynamic of the G2 gas cloud, offering a chance to resolve the capture and the swallowing of gas by a nearby black-hole and on recent well sampled extragalactic tidal disruption events, revealing new phenomena, and on their confrontation to state-of-the-art hydrodynamical models.

Programme

• Sgr A* activity
• The G2 gas cloud
• Extragalactic tidal disruption events

Invited speakers

• Maïca Clavel (APC Paris)
• Andreas Eckart (University of Cologne)
• Stefan Gillessen (MPE Garching)
• Andrew Levan (University of Warwick)

Scientific organizers
Stefanie Komossa (MPIFR Bonn), Stefan Gillessen (MPE Garching), Norbert Schartel (ESAC Madrid), Regis Terrier (APC Paris), Roland Walter (University of Geneva)

Contact
Roland.Walter @ unige.ch