This review volume provides an overview of the newly emerged and fast-developing field of tidal disruption events. For several decades, astronomers have speculated that a hapless star could wander too close to a super massive black hole and be torn apart by tidal forces. Yet it is only with the recent advent of numerous wide-field transient surveys that such events have been detected. Written by a team of prominent researchers, the review chapters detail the discoveries made so far in this burgeoning field of study across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from gamma-rays through X-rays, ultra-violet, optical, infrared, and radio. In addition, they show how tidal disruption events can be used to study the properties of quiescent, otherwise undetectable super massive black holes; the populations and dynamics of stars in galactic nuclei; the physics of black hole accretion including the potential to detect relativistic effects near the SMBH; and the physics of (radio) jet formation and evolution in a pristine environment. weiterlesen