Tidal disruption flares are differentiated into two classes -- those which
are sub-Eddington and those which radiate near the Eddington limit. Flares from
black holes above ~2 x 10^7 M_\odot will generally not radiate above the
Eddington limit. For a Schwarzschild black hole, the maximum bolometric
luminosity of a tidal disruption is ~L_Edd(5 x 10^7 M_\odot), substantially
below the Eddington luminosities of the most massive disrupting black holes (~2
x 10^8 M_\odot). Bolometric corrections to the spectra of the brightest flares
are found to be large (~7.5 mag). Nevertheless, the brightest flares are likely
to have absolute magnitudes in excess of -19 in V and -21 in U (in the absence
of reddening). Because the spectra are so blue, K-corrections may actually
brighten the flares in optical bands. If such flares are as frequent as
believed, they may soon be detected in low or high redshift supernovae
searches. The He II ionizing radiation produced in the flares may dominate that
which is produced by all other sources in the centers of quiescent galaxies,
creating a steady state, highly ionized, fossil nebula with an extent of ~1 kpc
which may be observable in recombination lines.Comment: 21 pages with 4 figures, AAS Latex, ApJ Submitte
