Tidal disruption

Disruption of a self-gravitating body when differential gravitational acceleration across it exceeds its binding acceleration. For a body of radius $R$, mass $m$ at distance $r$ from a much more massive body $M$, the competing scales are $GMR/r^3$ and $Gm/R^2$; their equality gives $r\sim R(M/m{)}^{1/3}$, up to geometry and internal-structure factors. The tidal tensor gives the directional differential acceleration. A tidal disruption event near a black hole is a specific astronomical application.