Gas accretion onto some massive black holes (MBHs) at the centers of galaxies actively powers luminous emission, but most MBHs are considered dormant. Occasionally, a star passing too near an MBH is torn apart by gravitational forces, leading to a bright tidal disruption flare (TDF). Although the high-energy transient Sw 1644+57 initially displayed none of the theoretically anticipated (nor previously observed) TDF characteristics, we show that observations suggest a sudden accretion event onto a central MBH of mass about 10(6) to 10(7) solar masses. There is evidence for a mildly relativistic outflow, jet collimation, and a spectrum characterized by synchrotron and inverse Compton processes; this leads to a natural analogy of Sw 1644+57 to a temporary smaller-scale blazar.

We present UV, optical, and near-infrared (NIR) photometry of the first electromagnetic counterpart to a gravitational wave source from Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO)/Virgo, the binary neutron star merger GW170817. Our data set extends from the discovery of the optical counterpart at 0.47-18.5 days post-merger, and includes observations with the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), Gemini-South/ FLAMINGOS-2 (GS/F2), and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The spectral energy distribution (SED) inferred from this photometry at 0.6 days is well described by a blackbody model with » T 8300 K, a radius of »Ŕ 4.5 10 14 cm (corresponding to an expansion velocity of » v c 0.3 ), and a bolometric luminosity of »Ĺ 5 10 bol 41 erg s −1 . At 1.5 days we find a multi-component SED across the optical and NIR, and subsequently we observe rapid fading in the UV and blue optical bands and significant reddening of the optical/ NIR colors. Modeling the entire data set, we find that models with heating from radioactive decay of 56 Ni, or those with only a single component of opacity from r-process elements, fail to capture the rapid optical decline and red optical/NIR colors. Instead, models with two components consistent with lanthanide-poor and lanthanide-rich ejecta provide a good fit to the data; the resulting "blue" component has » . These ejecta masses are broadly consistent with the estimated r-process production rate required to explain the Milky Way r-process abundances, providing the first evidence that binary neutron star (BNS) mergers can be a dominant site of r-process enrichment.

We present the first effort to aggregate, homogenize, and uniformly model the combined ultraviolet, optical, and near-infrared dataset for the electromagnetic counterpart of the binary neutron star merger GW170817. By assembling all of the available data from 18 different papers and 46 different instruments, we are able to identify and mitigate systematic offsets between individual datasets, and to identify clear outlying measurements, with the resulting pruned and adjusted dataset offering an opportunity to expand the study of the kilonova. The unified dataset includes 647 individual flux measurements, spanning 0.45 to 29.4 days post-merger, and thus has greater constraining power for physical models than any single dataset. We test a number of semianalytical models and find that the data are well modeled with a three-component kilonova model: a "blue" lanthanide-poor component (κ = 0.5 cm 2 g −1 ) with M ej ≈ 0.020 M and v ej ≈ 0.27c; an intermediate opacity "purple" component (κ = 3 cm 2 g −1 ) with M ej ≈ 0.047 M and v ej ≈ 0.15c; and a "red" lanthanide-rich component (κ = 10 cm 2 g −1 ) with M ej ≈ 0.011 M and v ej ≈ 0.14c. We further explore the possibility of ejecta asymmetry and its impact on the estimated parameters. From the inferred parameters we draw conclusions about the physical mechanisms responsible for the various ejecta components, the properties of the neutron stars, and, combined with an up-to-date merger rate, the implications for r-process enrichment via this channel. To facilitate future studies of this keystone event we make the unified dataset and our modeling code public.

The disruption of stars by supermassive black holes has been linked to more than a dozen flares in the cores of galaxies out to redshift z ∼ 0.4. Modeling these flares properly requires a prediction of the rate of mass return to the black hole after a disruption. Through hydrodynamical simulation, we show that aside from the full disruption of a solar mass star at the exact limit where the star is destroyed, the common assumptions used to estimateṀ (t), the rate of mass return to the black hole, are largely invalid. While the analytical approximation to tidal disruption predicts that the least-centrally concentrated stars and the deepest encounters should have more quickly-peaked flares, we find that the most-centrally concentrated stars have the quickest-peaking flares, and the trend between the time of peak and the impact parameter for deeply-penetrating encounters reverses beyond the critical distance at which the star is completely destroyed. We also show that the most-centrally concentrated stars produced a characteristic drop inṀ (t) shortly after peak when a star is only partially disrupted, with the power law index n being as extreme as -4 in the months immediately following the peak of a flare. Additionally, we find that n asymptotes to −2.2 for both low-and high-mass stars for approximately half of all stellar disruptions. Both of these results are significantly steeper than the typically assumed n = −5/3. As these precipitous decay rates are only seen for events in which a stellar core survives the disruption, they can be used to determine if an observed tidal disruption flare produced a surviving remnant. We provide fitting formulae for four fundamental quantities of tidal disruption as functions of the star's distance to the black hole at pericenter and its stellar structure: The total mass lost, the time of peak, the accretion rate at peak, and the power-law index shortly after peak. These results should be taken into consideration when flares arising from tidal disruptions are modeled.

We use the new Modular Open Source Fitter for Transients (MOSFiT) to model 38 hydrogen-poor superluminous supernovae (SLSNe). We fit their multicolour light curves with a magnetar spin-down model and present the posterior distributions of magnetar and ejecta parameters. The colour evolution of all SLSNe can be well matched with a simple absorbed blackbody. We find the following medians (1σ ranges) for the key parameters: spin period 2.4 ms (1.2-4 ms); magnetic field 0.8 × 10 14 G (0.2-1.8 ×10 14 G); ejecta mass 4.8 M (2.2-12.9 M ); kinetic energy 3.9 × 10 51 erg (1.9-9.8 ×10 51 erg). This significantly narrows the parameter space compared to our uninformed priors, showing that although the magnetar model is flexible, the parameter space relevant to SLSNe is actually well constrained by existing data. The requirement that the instantaneous engine power is ∼ 10 44 erg at the light curve peak necessitates either a large rotational energy (P < 2 ms), or more commonly that the spin-down and diffusion timescales be well-matched. We find no evidence for separate populations of fastand slow-declining SLSNe, which instead form a continuum both in light curve widths and inferred parameters. Variations in the spectra are well explained through differences in spin-down power and photospheric radii at maximum-light. We find no correlations between any model parameters and the properties of SLSN host galaxies. Comparing our posteriors to stellar evolution models, we show that SLSNe require rapidly rotating (fastest 10%) massive stars ( 20 M ), and that this is consistent with the observed SLSN rate. High mass, low metallicity, and likely binary interaction all serve to maintain rapid rotation essential for magnetar formation. By reproducing the full set of SLSN light curves, our posteriors can be used to inform photometric searches for SLSNe in future survey data.