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Arxiv: Exploring Low-Mass Black Holes through Tidal Disruption Events in the Early Universe: Perspectives in the Era of JWST, RST, and LSST Surveys Published: 12/18/2023 9:00:00 PM Updated: 9/12/2024 2:06:13 PM

Paper abstract: The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has recently uncovered the presence oflow-luminosity active galactic nuclei (AGNs) at z=4-11. Spectroscopicobservations have provided estimates of the nuclear black hole (BH) masses forthese sources, extending the low-mass boundary down to M_{\rm BH} ~10^{6-7}~M_\odot. Despite this breakthrough, the observed lowest mass of BHsis still \gtrsim 1-2 orders of magnitude heavier than the predicted massrange of their seed population, thereby leaving the initial mass distributionof massive BHs poorly constrained. In this paper, we focus on UV-to-optical (inrest frame) flares of stellar tidal disruption events (TDEs) embedded inlow-luminosity AGNs as a tool to explore low-mass BH populations with <~10^{4-6}~M_\odot. We provide an estimate of the TDE rate over z=4-11associated wth the properties of JWST-detected AGN host galaxies, and find thatdeep and wide survey programs with JWST and Roman Space Telescope (RST) candetect and identify TDEs up to z~eq 4-7. The predicted detection numbersof TDEs at z>4 in one year are N_{\rm TDE} ~ 2-10~(0.2-2) for theJADES-Medium (and COSMOS-Web) survey with JWST, and N_{\rm TDE} ~2-10~(8-50) for the Deep (and Wide) tier of the High-latitude Time DomainSurvey with RST. We further discuss the survey strategies to hunt for thetransient high-redshift TDEs in wide-field surveys with RST, as well as a jointobservation campaign with the Vera C. Rubin Observatory for enhancing thedetection number. The high-redshift TDE search will give us a uniqueopportunity to probe the mass distribution of early BH populations.