Abstract: When a star approaches a supermassive black hole closer than the tidal
radius, the star can be deformed and disrupted by the tidal field of the massive
hole. The tidal disruption of a star is a useful subject, as such events can be
used to probe quiescent supermassive black holes and the stellar dynamics and
accretion physics around them. Candidates of tidal disruption events have been
observed using X-ray, UV, optical, and radio telescopes. In this talk I will
give a review of our current understanding on the disruption process of the
star, the evolution and circularization of the debris stream, and the eventual
accretion of the stellar material onto the black hole. With the launch of LSST
and the boost of the sample pool size, more sophisticated theoretical treatments
are needed in order to effectively detect and extract information from tidal
disruption events.