2025MNRAS.542L.149Z

Tidal disruption events (TDEs), as excellent beacons to black hole (BH) accreting systems, have been studied for more than five decades in relation to a single star tidally disrupted by a central massive BH. However, if two stars pass through a central BH and are tidally disrupted in a short period, so-called double TDEs could be expected and lead to unique variability features very different from features found in standard TDEs. Here, we report such oversimplified double TDEs in the known changing-look AGN Mrk 1018, for which a 15-yr-long light curve with plateau features can be described by two main-sequence stars tidally disrupted by the central supermassive BH. Meanwhile, the BH mass determined by the double TDEs is consistent with the value determined by the M-sigma relationship using the measured stellar velocity dispersions in Mrk 1018. The results indicate tight connections between the TDEs and the changing-look properties in Mrk 1018.