In the past few years wide-field optical and UV transient surveys as well as
X-ray telescopes have allowed us to identify a few dozen candidate tidal
disruption events (TDEs). While in theory the physical processes in TDEs are
expected to be ubiquitous, a few distinct classes of TDEs have been observed.
Some TDEs radiate mainly in NUV/optical while others produce prominent X-rays.
Moreover, relativistic jets have been observed in only a handful of TDEs. This
diversity might be related to the details of the super-Eddington accretion and
emission physics relevant to TDE disks. In this Letter, we utilize novel
three-dimensional general relativistic radiation magnetohydrodynamics
simulations to study the super-Eddington compact disk phase expected in TDEs.
Consistent with previous studies, geometrically thick disks, wide-angle
optically-thick fast outflows and relativistic jets are produced. The outflow
density and velocity depend sensitively on the inclination angle, and hence so
does the reprocessing of emission produced from the inner disk. We then use
Monte-Carlo radiative transfer to calculate the reprocessed spectra and find
that that the observed ratio of optical to X-ray fluxes increases with
increasing inclination angle. This naturally leads to a unified model for
different classes of TDEs in which the spectral properties of the TDE depend
mainly on the viewing-angle of the observer with respect to the orientation of
the disk.Comment: Accepted to ApJ Letter