# The Effect of General Relativistic Precession on Tidal Disruption Events from Eccentric Nuclear Disks

## TL;DR

This paper investigates how general relativistic precession influences tidal disruption event rates in eccentric nuclear disks, finding that for certain mass ratios, relativistic effects do not significantly alter TDE rates or dynamics.

## Contribution

The study demonstrates that in eccentric nuclear disks with a black hole to disk mass ratio above 10^{-3}, general relativity does not significantly impact TDE rates or orbital dynamics.

## Key findings

- TDE rates are unaffected by relativistic precession for certain mass ratios.
- Orbital elements between TDEs are correlated, suggesting potential observational signatures.
- Full loss cone regime is achieved for black hole to disk mass ratio rac{10^{-3}}{.

## Abstract

An eccentric nuclear disk consists of stars moving on apsidally-aligned orbits around a central black hole. The secular gravitational torques that dynamically stabilize these disks can also produce tidal disruption events (TDEs) at very high rates in Newtonian gravity. General relativity, however, is known to quench secular torques via rapid apsidal precession. Here we show that for a disk to black hole mass ratio $\gtrsim 10^{-3}$, the system is in the full loss cone regime. The magnitude of the torque per orbital period acting on a stellar orbit means that general relativistic precession does not have a major effect on the dynamics. Thus we find that TDE rates from eccentric nuclear disks are not affected by general relativistic precession. Furthermore, we show that orbital elements between successive TDEs from eccentric nuclear disks are correlated, potentially resulting in unique observational signatures.