Occurrence and dynamics of disk tearing in accretion flows

Determine whether, and how commonly, real accretion flows tear into discrete, independently precessing annuli rather than develop a single smooth warp, and characterize the resulting observational signatures.

Background

The paper models a misaligned tidal-disruption-event accretion disk as one continuously warped surface that connects an aligned inner region to a tilted outer region, following the classical Bardeen–Petterson picture. A competing possibility is disk tearing, in which differential Lense–Thirring precession overwhelms internal warp communication and separates the disk into near-independent, precessing annuli.

The authors identify the prevalence and behavior of disk tearing as unresolved because the process is nonlinear, time dependent, and sensitive to poorly constrained internal stresses. Their semi-analytic single-surface model does not address this regime, leaving both the conditions for tearing and its observational consequences open.