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Optical polarization from colliding stellar stream shocks in a tidal disruption event

Blinov, D.; Liodakis, I.; Berton, M. +9 more

A tidal disruption event (TDE) occurs when a supermassive black hole rips apart a passing star. Part of the stellar material falls toward the black hole, forming an accretion disk that in some cases launches a relativistic jet. We performed optical polarimetry observations of a TDE, AT 2020mot. We find a peak linear polarization degree of 25 ± 4%,…