Tidal Disruption Events on FIRE: Illuminating the Cosmic Evolution of Tidal Disruption Rates

Abstract Tidal disruption events have been extensively studied in the local Universe, but their prevalence at high redshifts remains largely unexplored. Using the FIRE-2 cosmological zoom-in simulations, we compute the per-galaxy tidal disruption rate (TDR) over z = 1–10, covering black holes from IMBHs to SMBHs. The averaged TDR rises from the early Universe, peaks at ∼4 × 10 −4 gal −1 yr −1 near z ∼ 2.5, and declines to ∼10 −5 gal −1 yr −1 at z = 1. The TDR correlates strongly with host galaxy star formation rate and central stellar density at all redshifts. Qualitatively, the TDR trends with the M BH and M gal persist from high redshift to the local Universe, suggesting similar black hole–galaxy scaling across cosmic time. Satellite galaxies exhibit comparably high TDRs, with their fractional contribution increasing significantly at high redshifts, highlighting their potential for probing IMBHs and early galaxy assembly. This work demonstrates that cosmological simulations offer a promising avenue for constraining the cosmic evolution of the TDR, paving the way for future comparisons with next-generation observations.