Reverberation Evidence for Stream Collision and Delayed Disk Formation in Tidal Disruption Events

Abstract When a star passes through the tidal disruption radius of a massive black hole (BH), it can be torn apart by the tidal force of the BH, known as the tidal disruption event (TDE). Since the observed UV/optical luminosity significantly exceeds the predictions of the compact disk model in classical TDE theory, two competing models, stream collision and envelope reprocessing, have been proposed to address this discrepancy. To distinguish between these models, we investigated the continuum reverberation behaviors for ~30 TDEs with high-quality multiband light curves. We found that over half of them exhibit a positive lag by a few days in UV/optical bands, indicating that their inferred sizes are significantly larger than the envelope sizes in reprocessing. Moreover, X-ray emissions are not only significantly delayed relative to the primary UV/optical peak but also lag behind the rebrightening bump by up to several tens of days, completely different from the X-ray illumination reprocessing. Additionally, the anticorrelated UV−optical continuum in ASASSN-15lh further disfavors the reprocessing scenario. In contrast, the model of stream collisions, combined with delayed accretion disk formation, can provide a unified explanation for the diverse TDE observations, e.g., the optical/X-ray population and the frequently observed rebrightening bump. This model describes a unification scheme wherein the UV/optical emission originates from stream collisions during the early stage of TDE evolution and gradually transitions to being dominated by a accretion disk with detectable X-ray emission in the late stage. After transitioning to a quiescent state, recurrent flares may be observed in some cases, possibly related to repeating partial TDEs.