A Mid-infrared Flare in the Active Galaxy MCG-02-04-026: Dust Echo of a Nuclear Transient Event

Sun, Luming; Jiang, Ning; Wang, Tinggui; Zhou, Hongyan; Dou, Liming; Yang, Chenwei; Pan, Xiang; Sheng, Zhenfeng; Zhong, Zhihao; Yan, Lin; Li, Ge

doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ab9f2c

Cited by 13 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 79 publications

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“…Object SDSS J0103+1401 shows very fast rising followed by a relatively stable high state, in contrast with SDSS J0205+0004, which also displays fast rising but immediate declining. The other two objects show slower rising, in which SDSS J0120-0829 has manifested itself as a complete flare in terms of both rising and declining (Sun et al 2020). and that from the maximum outburst epoch, respectively.…”

Section: Constraints On the Physical Position Of Mir Flaresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mid-infrared Outbursts in Nearby Galaxies (MIRONG). I. Sample Selection and Characterization

Jiang

Wang

Dou

et al. 2021

ApJS

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Optical time-domain astronomy has grown rapidly in the past decade, but the dynamic infrared sky is rarely explored. Aiming to construct a sample of mid-infrared outbursts in nearby galaxies (MIRONG), we have conducted a systematical search of low-redshift (z < 0.35) Sloan Digital Sky Survey spectroscopic galaxies that have experienced recent mid-infrared (MIR) flares using their Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) light curves. A total of 137 galaxies have been selected by requiring a brightening amplitude of 0.5 mag in at least one WISE band with respect to their quiescent phases. Only a small fraction (10.9%) has corresponding optical flares. Except for the four supernovae (SNe) in our sample, the MIR luminosities of the remaining sources (L 4.6 μm > 10 42 erg s −1) are markedly brighter than known SNe, and their physical locations are very close to the galactic center (median <0 1). Only four galaxies are radio-loud, indicating that synchrotron radiation from relativistic jets could contribute to MIR variability. We propose that these MIR outbursts are dominated by the dust echoes of transient accretion onto supermassive black holes, such as tidal disruption events (TDEs) and turn-on (changinglook) active galactic nuclei. Moreover, the inferred peak MIR luminosity function is generally consistent with the X-ray and optical TDEs at the high end, albeit with large uncertainties. Our results suggest that a large population of transients has been overlooked by optical surveys, probably due to dust obscuration or intrinsically optical weakness. Thus, a search in the infrared band is crucial for us to obtain a panoramic picture of nuclear outburst. The multiwavelength follow-up observations of the MIRONG sample are in progress and will be presented in a series of subsequent papers. Unified Astronomy Thesaurus concepts: Time domain astronomy (2109); Tidal disruption (1696); Active galactic nuclei (16); Infrared astronomy (786)

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Section: Constraints On the Physical Position Of Mir Flaresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mid-infrared Outbursts in Nearby Galaxies (MIRONG). I. Sample Selection and Characterization

Jiang

Wang

Dou

et al. 2021

ApJS

Self Cite

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“…This is a good approximation because the survival time is a very sensitive function of temperature (a few per cent variation in T gives an order unity change in t surv ), and it can be shown that the evaporating layer with only has radial thickness of a few per cent of the sublimation radius (e.g. Lu, Kumar & Evans 2016;Sun et al 2020).…”

Section: U S T E C H O M O D E Lmentioning

confidence: 99%

Infrared dust echoes from neutron star mergers

McKee

Mooley

2021

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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A significant fraction of binary neutron star mergers occur in star-forming galaxies where the UV-optical and soft X-ray emission from the relativistic jet may be absorbed by dust and re-emitted at longer wavelengths. We show that, for mergers occurring in gas-rich environment ($n_{\rm H}\gtrsim 0.5\rm \, cm^{-3}$ at a few to tens of pc) and when the viewing angle is less than about 30°, the emission from heated dust should be detectable by James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), with a detection rate of $\sim 1\rm \, yr^{-1}$. The spatial separation between the dust emission and the merger site is a few to 10 milli-arcsecs (for a source distance of 150 Mpc), which may be astrometrically resolved by JWST for sufficiently high signal-noise-ratio detections. Measuring the superluminal apparent speed of the flux centroid directly gives the orbital inclination of the merger, which can be combined with gravitational wave data to measure the Hubble constant. For a line of sight within the jet opening angle, the dust echoes are much brighter and may contaminate the search for kilonova candidates from short gamma-ray bursts, such as the case of GRB 130603B.

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“…For simplicity, we assume that all grains with temperature T > T sub evaporate instantaneously. This is a good approximation because the survival time is a very sensitive function of temperature (a few percent variation in T gives an order unity change in tsurv), and it can be shown that the evaporating layer with only has radial thickness of a few percent of the sublimation radius (e.g., Lu et al 2016;Sun et al 2020).…”

Section: Dust Echo Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Infrared dust echoes from neutron star mergers

Lu,

McKee,

Mooley

2021

Preprint

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A significant fraction of binary neutron star mergers occur in star-forming galaxies where the UV-optical and soft X-ray emission from the relativistic jet may be absorbed by dust and re-emitted at longer wavelengths. We show that, for mergers occurring in gas-rich environment (n H 0.5 cm −3 at a few to tens of pc) and when the viewing angle is less than about 30 o , the emission from heated dust should be detectable by James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), with a detection rate of ∼1 yr −1 . The spatial separation between the dust emission and the merger site is a few to 10 milli-arcsecs (for a source distance of 150 Mpc), which may be astrometrically resolved by JWST for sufficiently high signal-noise-ratio detections. Measuring the superluminal apparent speed of the flux centroid directly gives the orbital inclination of the merger, which can be combined with gravitational wave data to measure the Hubble constant. For a line of sight within the jet opening angle, the dust echoes are much brighter and may contaminate the search for kilonova candidates from short gamma-ray bursts, such as the case of GRB 130603B.

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A Mid-infrared Flare in the Active Galaxy MCG-02-04-026: Dust Echo of a Nuclear Transient Event

Cited by 13 publications

References 79 publications

Mid-infrared Outbursts in Nearby Galaxies (MIRONG). I. Sample Selection and Characterization

Mid-infrared Outbursts in Nearby Galaxies (MIRONG). I. Sample Selection and Characterization

Infrared dust echoes from neutron star mergers

Infrared dust echoes from neutron star mergers

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