  Tidal disruption events occur rarely in any individual galaxy. Over the last
decade, however, time-domain surveys have begun to accumulate statistical
samples of these flares. What dynamical processes are responsible for feeding
stars to supermassive black holes? At what rate are stars tidally disrupted in
realistic galactic nuclei? What may we learn about supermassive black holes and
broader astrophysical questions by estimating tidal disruption event rates from
observational samples of flares? These are the questions we aim to address in
this Chapter, which summarizes current theoretical knowledge about rates of
stellar tidal disruption, and compares theoretical predictions to the current
state of observations.
