Repeating flares, X-ray outbursts and delayed infrared emission: A comprehensive compilation of optical tidal disruption events

TDECat

¹ Institute of Astrophysics, FORTH, N.Plastira 100, Vassilika Vouton, 70013 Heraklion, Greece
² Department of Physics, University of Crete, 71003 Heraklion, Greece
³ NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL 35812, USA
⁴ Institutt for Fysikk, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Høgskloreringen 5, Trondheim 7491, Norway
⁵ Instituto de Astronomía, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México Campus Ensenada, Carr. Tijuana-Ensenada km107, Ensenada, BC 22800, Mexico
⁶ Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
⁷ Astronomical Observatory, University of Warsaw, Al. Ujazdowskie 4, 00-478 Warszawa, Poland
⁸ Astrophysics Division, National Centre for Nuclear Research, Pasteura 7, 02-093 Warsaw, Poland
⁹ Astronomical Institute, University of Wrocław, Kopernika 11, 51-622 Wrocław, Poland
¹⁰ Institute of Astronomy, Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Informatics, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Grudziądzka 5, 87-100 Toruń, Poland
¹¹ Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes, Apartado 321, E-38700 Santa Cruz de la Palma, Spain
¹² Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
¹³ Rye Country Day School, NY 10580, USA
¹⁴ Head-Royce School, CA 94602, USA
¹⁵ Harbor High School, CA 95062, USA

^★ Corresponding author: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Received: 31 March 2025
Accepted: 14 December 2025

Abstract

Tidal disruption events (TDEs) have been proposed as valuable laboratories for studying dormant black holes. However, progress in this field has been hampered by the limited number of observed events. In this work, we present TDECat, a comprehensive catalogue of 134 confirmed TDEs (131 optical TDEs and three jetted TDEs) discovered up to the end of 2024, accompanied by multi-wavelength photometry (X-ray, UV, optical, and infrared) and publicly available spectra. We also study the statistical properties, spectral classifications, and multi-band variability of these events. Using a Bayesian Blocks algorithm, we determined the duration, rise time (t_rise), decay time (t_decay), and their ratio for 103 flares in our sample. We find that these timescales follow a log-normal distribution. Furthermore, our spectral analysis shows that most optical TDEs belong to the TDE-H+He class, followed by the TDE-H, TDE-He, and TDE-featureless classes, which is consistent with expectations from main-sequence star disruption. Using archival observations, we identified three new potentially repeating TDEs, namely, AT 2024pvu, AT 2022exr, and AT 2021uvz, increasing the number of known repeating events. In both newly identified and previously known cases, the secondary flares exhibit a similar shape to the primary. We also examined the infrared and X-ray emission from the TDEs in our catalogue, and find that 14 out of the 18 infrared events have associated X-ray emission, strongly suggesting a potential correlation. Finally, we find that for three sub-samples (repeating flares, infrared-emitting events, and X-ray-emitting events), the spectral classes are unlikely to be randomly distributed, suggesting a connection between spectral characteristics and multi-wavelength emission. TDEcat enables large-scale population studies across wavelengths and spectral classes, providing essential tools for navigating the data-rich era of upcoming surveys such as the Legacy Survey of Space and Time.