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Abstract Extreme tidal disruption events (eTDEs), which occur when a star passes very close to a supermassive black hole, may provide a way to observe a long-sought general relativistic effect: orbits that wind several times around a black hole and then leave. Through general relativistic hydrodynamics simulations, we show that such eTDEs are easily distinguished from most tidal disruptions, in which stars come close, but not so close, to the black hole. Following the stellar orbit, the debris is initially distributed in a crescent, it then turns into a set of tight spirals circling the black hole, which merge into a shell expanding radially outwards. Some mass later falls back toward the black hole, while the remainder is ejected. Internal shocks within the infalling debris power the observed emission. The resulting lightcurve rises rapidly to roughly the Eddington luminosity, maintains this level for between a few weeks and a year (depending on both the stellar mass and the black hole mass), and then drops. Most of its power is in thermal X-rays at a temperature ∼(1–2) × 10 6 K (∼100–200 eV). The debris evolution and observational features of eTDEs are qualitatively different from ordinary TDEs, making eTDEs a new type of TDE. Although eTDEs are relatively rare for lower-mass black holes, most tidal disruptions around higher-mass black holes are extreme. Their detection offers a view of an exotic relativistic phenomenon previously inaccessible. 

The magnetorotational instability (MRI) has been extensively studied in circular magnetized disks, and its ability to drive accretion has been demonstrated in a multitude of scenarios. There are reasons to expect eccentric magnetized disks to also exist, but the behavior of the MRI in these disks remains largely uncharted territory. Here we present the first simulations that follow the nonlinear development of the MRI in eccentric disks. We find that the MRI in eccentric disks resembles circular disks in two ways, in the overall level of saturation and in the dependence of the detailed saturated state on magnetic topology. However, in contrast with circular disks, the Maxwell stress in eccentric disks can be negative in some disk sectors, even though the integrated stress is always positive. The angular momentum flux raises the eccentricity of the inner parts of the disk and diminishes the same of the outer parts. Because material accreting onto a black hole from an eccentric orbit possesses more energy than material tracing the innermost stable circular orbit, the radiative efficiency of eccentric disks may be significantly lower than circular disks. This may resolve the “inverse energy problem” seen in many tidal disruption events.