  A white dwarf (WD) captured into a high-eccentricity orbit around a massive
black hole (MBH) may undergo many pericenter passages before tidal disruption.
During these passages, the tidal potential of the MBH excites internal
oscillations or waves in the WD, and the dissipation of these oscillations can
significantly influence the physical properties of the WD prior to its
disruption. We calculate the amplitude of the tidally excited gravity
(buoyancy) waves in the WD as a function of the pericenter distance and
eccentricity for realistic WD models, under the assumption that these outgoing
gravity waves are efficiently dissipated in outer layers of the WD by
non-linear effects or radiative damping. We obtain fitting formulae for the
tidal energy and angular momentum transfer rates as well as the tidal heating
rate. We find that these dynamical tides are much weaker than gravitational
radiation in driving the orbital decay of the WD-MBH binary, and they are also
inefficient in changing the WD spin during the orbital evolution. Incorporating
our computed tidal dissipation rate into a MESA-based WD evolution code, we
find that tidal heating can lead to appreciable brightening of the WD and may
induce runaway fusion in the hydrogen envelope well before the WD undergoes
tidal disruption.
