Many astrophysical environments are extremely complex such that it is
notoriously difficult to make theoretical predictions. Astronomers try
to understand the Universe following the procedure of the scientific method:
observation/experiment -
hypotheses - predictions - test (by new observation)
- modification of hypotheses
As part of theoretical
research, it is crucial to highlight the predictions,
especially if they are testable in the near future.
It is very likely that many predictions will be proven
to be (at least partially) incorrect, yet we still make progress along the way.
More observational tests of the following predictions are highly encouraged!
| Predictions (links to Papers) | Observational Tests |
| TDEs produce bright infrared dust echoes [P] |
Confirmed [P1, P2, P3, P4, P5, etc] |
| FRBs are from magnetars [P1, P2, P3] |
Tentatively confirmed [P1, P2, P3] |
| Rapid accretion disk formation in TDEs [P1, P2, P3] |
Possible evidence [P1, P2, P3, P4, etc] |
| QPEs should have optical spectrum of L_nu ~ nu^(5/7) [P] |
Not yet |
| QPEs are produced by a low-mass main-sequence star in a mildly eccentric
orbit around a supermassive black hole, and they should show long-term
timing variations due to general relativistic precessions [P] |
Not yet |
| The supermassive black hole at our Galactic Center, Sgr A*, ejects
"extreme-velocity stars" at speeds of ~2000 km/s at a rate
of 1 to 10 per Myr, due to Hills break-up of tidally hardened binaries. [P] |
Possible evidence [P] |
| FRBs should have maximum luminosity limited by Schwinger pair production [P] |
Possible evidence [P1, P2] |
| GW190814's secondary was from an
earlier NS-NS merger in a triple system,
and future similar events should also have secondary
mass in a narrow range (2.4, 3) Msun [P] |
Possible support from GW200210_092254 [P] |
| Some LIGO-detected NS-NS mergers should have bright X-ray emission lasting for ~10^2 sec (in GRB nomenclature, these should be called "orphan extended emission") [P] |
Not yet |
| JWST can detect narrow (v ~ 0.01c) line features in its near-IR spectra of a kilonova a few weeks after the NS merger [P] |
Not yet |
| Infrared dust echo from NS-NS mergers detectable by JWST [P] |
Not yet |
| The polarization angle time series from a repeating FRB source should be periodic [P] |
Not yet |
| TDE bolometric emission should be mainly in the extreme-UV (not directly observable) [P] |
Not conclusive [P1, P2] |
| Optically bright TDEs should have a shallow spectrum of Lv ~ v^0.5 in the near-IR [P] |
Not yet |
| UV/optical transients from tidal disruption of main-sequence stars by stellar-mass BHs [P] |
Not yet |
| The gamma/X-ray spectrum of jetted TDEs should show a cutoff above a few MeV [P] | Not yet |
| Luminosity-modulated DM variation in bright FRBs [P] | Not conclusive [P] |
| Companions of the fastest (>1000 km/s) hyper-velocity stars were captured by SgrA* and a fraction of them survive today in close orbits [P] | Not yet |