juliensimon/otter-tde-catalog

OTTER TDE Catalog

Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble

Part of a dataset collection on Hugging Face.

Dataset description

All known tidal disruption events (TDEs) from the Open TDE Catalog — stars torn apart by supermassive black holes.

A tidal disruption event (TDE) occurs when a star passes close enough to a supermassive black hole to be ripped apart by tidal forces, producing a luminous flare visible across the electromagnetic spectrum. The Open TDE Catalog aggregates all known TDE candidates with coordinates, redshifts, host galaxy identifications, and peak magnitudes.

Tidal disruption events provide a unique laboratory for studying supermassive black holes (SMBHs) that are otherwise quiescent and therefore undetectable. When a star on a low-angular-momentum orbit enters the tidal radius of an SMBH, the differential gravitational force across the star exceeds its self-gravity, shredding it into a stream of debris. Roughly half of this material becomes bound and accretes onto the black hole, producing a luminous flare that peaks in the UV/optical for lower-mass black holes (10^6--10^7 solar masses) and in the soft X-ray band for more massive ones. The light curve rise time, peak luminosity, and late-time decay rate (classically predicted to follow a t^(-5/3) power law) encode the black hole mass, the stellar mass and structure, and the orbital geometry.

The spectroscopic classification of TDEs into hydrogen-rich (TDE-H), helium-rich (TDE-He), and mixed subtypes reflects the composition of the disrupted star and the complex reprocessing of emission in the debris stream and outflows. Relativistic TDEs -- such as Swift J1644+57 -- launch powerful jets detectable at radio through hard X-ray wavelengths, providing probes of jet formation physics analogous to active galactic nuclei but in a time-resolved, 'clean' environment. The host galaxy properties (mass, morphology, nuclear activity) are critical for understanding the SMBH occupation fraction and the stellar dynamics that deliver stars to disruption orbits, with TDEs preferentially occurring in post-starburst ('E+A') galaxies for reasons that remain actively debated.

Schema

Column	Type	Description	Sample	Null %
name	object	Primary TDE designation (e.g., 'ASASSN-14li', 'AT2019qiz', 'Swift J1644+57'); modern transients use AT prefix until spectroscopically confirmed	2MASX J0249	0.0%
aliases	object	Comma-separated list of alternative designations from different surveys or reporting telegrams; null if no aliases recorded	2XMMi J184725.1-631724	83.3%
ra_hms	object	Right ascension of the TDE / host nucleus in sexagesimal format (HH:MM:SS.ss)	02:49:17.28	13.3%
dec_dms	object	Declination of the TDE / host nucleus in sexagesimal format (+DD:MM:SS.ss)	-04:12:54	13.3%
ra	float64	Right ascension in decimal degrees (J2000.0 ICRS); range 0-360; null for ~10% of entries lacking coordinates	42.322	14.4%
dec	float64	Declination in decimal degrees (J2000.0 ICRS); range -90 to +90; null when ra is null	-4.215	13.3%
redshift	float64	Host galaxy spectroscopic redshift; TDE surveys typically probe 0.01 < z < 1; null for ~40% of entries; range ~0.001 (very nearby) to ~1	0.0186	6.7%
claimed_type	object	Spectroscopic classification: 'TDE' (confirmed), 'TDE?' (candidate), 'TDE-H' (hydrogen-dominated spectrum), 'TDE-He' (helium-dominated), 'TDE-H+He' (mixed), 'TDE-featureless'; null for unclassified candidates	TDE	58.9%
host_galaxy	object	Name of the host galaxy where the TDE occurred; TDEs preferentially occur in post-starburst ('E+A') galaxies; null for ~30% of entries	2MASX J02491731-0412521	7.8%
host_ra	float64	Host galaxy nucleus right ascension in decimal degrees; may differ slightly from TDE position for well-resolved hosts	42.322167	8.9%
host_dec	float64	Host galaxy nucleus declination in decimal degrees	-4.2145	7.8%
host_offset_arcsec	float64	Angular offset between the TDE position and the host nucleus in arcseconds; genuine TDEs should be coincident with the nucleus (offset < 1 arcsec for high-z events); null for most entries	1.897	20.0%
peak_mag	float64	Peak apparent magnitude (filter unspecified, typically optical/UV); null for ~60% of entries	15.6	52.2%
peak_abs_mag	float64	Peak absolute magnitude; typical TDE: -17 to -21 mag; null for entries lacking redshift or peak apparent magnitude	-20.855	55.6%
peak_date	datetime64[ns]	UTC date of peak brightness; null for events where the light curve peak was not well-constrained	2014-04-04 00:00:00	53.3%
discovery_date	datetime64[ns]	UTC date the transient was first reported; format YYYY-MM-DD	2006-07-14 00:00:00	27.8%
luminosity_distance_mpc	float64	Luminosity distance in megaparsecs, computed from redshift; null when redshift is unavailable	83.5	6.7%
velocity_km_s	float64	Host galaxy recession velocity in km/s (v = cz); null when redshift is unavailable	5520.0	6.7%
ebv	float64	Milky Way line-of-sight dust reddening E(B-V) in magnitudes from the Schlegel/Schlafly dust maps; used to correct observed magnitudes for extinction	0.0267	14.4%
instruments	object	Instruments or facilities used for observations (e.g., 'ZTF', 'Swift-XRT', 'SDSS'); null for many entries	PN, PSPC, XRT	18.9%
discovery_year	Int64	Year of discovery; derived from discovery_date; null when discovery_date is unavailable	2006	27.8%

Quick stats

• 90 tidal disruption events (1990--2018)
• 77 with sky coordinates
• 84 with redshift measurements
• 37 with spectroscopic classification
• 83 with identified host galaxy
• 43 with peak magnitude

Classifications

Type	Count
TDE?	14
MS + SMBH	8
TDE	6
AGN?	3
Candidate	2
WD + IMBH	1
Planet + WD	1
Low-mass TDE	1
SLSN-I?	1

Usage

from datasets import load_dataset
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

ds = load_dataset("juliensimon/otter-tde-catalog", split="train")
df = ds.to_pandas()

# All confirmed TDEs
confirmed = df[df["claimed_type"] == "TDE"]

# TDEs with redshift
with_z = df[df["redshift"].notna()].sort_values("redshift")

# Nearby TDEs (z < 0.05)
nearby = df[df["redshift"] < 0.05].sort_values("redshift")

# Discoveries per year
per_year = df["discovery_year"].dropna().value_counts().sort_index()
plt.figure(figsize=(10, 5))
plt.bar(per_year.index, per_year.values, color="steelblue")
plt.xlabel("Year")
plt.ylabel("Number of TDEs discovered")
plt.title("TDE Discoveries per Year")
plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()

Data source

https://github.com/astrocatalogs/tidaldisruptions

Related datasets

• juliensimon/open-supernova-catalog

• juliensimon/gamma-ray-bursts

• juliensimon/nasa-exoplanets

Citation

@dataset{otter_tde_catalog,
  title = {OTTER TDE Catalog},
  author = {juliensimon},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/otter-tde-catalog},
  publisher = {Hugging Face}
}

License

CC-BY-4.0