Title:
Tidal disruptions in galaxy mergers and luminous infrared galaxies

Abstract:
Tidal disruption event (TDE) candidates occurring in relatively dust free nuclear 
environments are quite routinely discovered by optical wide field surveys. 
Recent studies have also found evidence for an enhanced rate of TDEs 
in the nuclear regions of galaxy mergers and luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs). 
Here, we present our infrared (IR) discoveries and multi-wavelength follow-up of 
two events that were hosted by LIRGs and showed extremely high IR luminosities 
and energetics (Mattila et al. 2018, Science; Kool et al. in prep.). 
In one of the cases our high spatial resolution VLBI radio observations also resolved 
an expanding jet as expected when a fraction of the accretion power in a TDE 
is channelled into a relativistic outflow. We expect that similar events 
may have remained hidden within dusty and dense nuclear environments 
and these detected events may be just the tip of the iceberg of 
a hitherto missed population. Finally, we describe our efforts to search for 
new similar events by systematically monitoring a sample of galaxy mergers and 
LIRGs in the near-IR K-band to test if they host such events at very a high rate 
as indicated by the previous detections.