Swift J2058.4+0516: Discovery of a Possible Second Relativistic Tidal Disruption Flare?

Cenko, S. Bradley; Krimm, H. A.; Horesh, A.; Rau, A.; Frail, D. A.; Kennea, J. A.; Levan, A. J.; Holland, S. T.; Butler, Nathaniel R.; Quimby, R.; Bloom, J.; Filippenko, A. V.; Gal‐Yam, A.; Greiner, J.; Kulkarni, S. R.; Ofek, E. O.; Olivares, E. F.; Schady, P.; Silverman, J. M.; Tanvir, N. R.; Xu, D.

doi:10.1088/0004-637x/753/1/77

Cited by 312 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…In the case of Swift J1644+57, Zauderer et al (2011) andBerger et al (2012) inferred Γ ≈ 2.2. Cenko et al (2012) find that Γ 2.1 is required in Swift J2058+05. In both cases, the observed spectrum can be explain by both internal dissipation and Compton drag (see, e.g., Bloom et al 2011).…”

Section: Dissipation and Emission Mechanismsmentioning

confidence: 79%

Illuminating Massive Black Holes With White Dwarfs: Orbital Dynamics and High-Energy Transients From Tidal Interactions

MacLeod

Goldstein

Ramírez-Ruiz

et al. 2014

ApJ

130

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White dwarfs (WDs) can be tidally disrupted only by massive black holes (MBHs) with masses less than ∼10 5 M . These tidal interactions feed material to the MBH well above its Eddington limit, with the potential to launch a relativistic jet. The corresponding beamed emission is a promising indication of an otherwise quiescent MBH of relatively low mass. We show that the mass transfer history, and thus the light curve, is quite different when the disruptive orbit is parabolic, eccentric, or circular. The mass lost each orbit exponentiates in the eccentric-orbit case, leading to the destruction of the WD after several tens of orbits. We examine the stellar dynamics of clusters surrounding MBHs to show that single-passage WD disruptions are substantially more common than repeating encounters. The 10 49 erg s −1 peak luminosity of these events makes them visible to cosmological distances. They may be detectible at rates of as many as tens per year by instruments like Swift. In fact, WD-disruption transients significantly outshine their main-sequence star counterparts and are the tidal interaction most likely to be detected arising from MBHs with masses less than 10 5 M . The detection or nondetection of such WD-disruption transients by Swift is, therefore, a powerful tool to constrain the lower end of the MBH mass function. The emerging ultralong gamma-ray burst class of events all have peak luminosities and durations reminiscent of WD disruptions, offering a hint that WD-disruption transients may already be present in existing data sets.

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Section: Dissipation and Emission Mechanismsmentioning

confidence: 79%

Illuminating Massive Black Holes With White Dwarfs: Orbital Dynamics and High-Energy Transients From Tidal Interactions

MacLeod

Goldstein

Ramírez-Ruiz

et al. 2014

ApJ

130

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“…A few TDE candidates were found in X-ray data from ROSAT (Komossa & Bade 1999;Donley et al 2002;Halpern et al 2004), Chandra , and XMM-Newton (Esquej et al 2007); in γ -ray and X-ray data from Swift (Bloom et al 2011;Burrows et al 2011;Levan et al 2011;Zauderer et al 2011;Cenko et al 2012); in UV data from GALEX (Gezari et al 2006;Gezari et al 2009); and in optical data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS 26 ;van Velzen et al 2011). The high-energy emission is associated with a jet pointing in our line of sight, while the soft X-ray/UV-optical flare is usually identified with thermal emission coming from an accretion flow.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A CONTINUUM OF H- TO He-RICH TIDAL DISRUPTION CANDIDATES WITH A PREFERENCE FOR E+A GALAXIES

Arcavi

Gal‐Yam

Sullivan

et al. 2014

ApJ

Self Cite

437

629

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We present the results of a Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) archival search for blue transients that lie in the magnitude range between "normal" core-collapse and superluminous supernovae (i.e., with −21 M R (peak) −19). Of the six events found after excluding all interacting Type IIn and Ia-CSM supernovae, three (PTF09ge, 09axc, and 09djl) are coincident with the centers of their hosts, one (10iam) is offset from the center, and a precise offset cannot be determined for two (10nuj and 11glr). All the central events have similar rise times to the He-rich tidal disruption candidate PS1-10jh, and the event with the best-sampled light curve also has similar colors and power-law decay. Spectroscopically, PTF09ge is He-rich, while PTF09axc and 09djl display broad hydrogen features around peak magnitude. All three central events are in low star formation hosts, two of which are E+A galaxies. Our spectrum of the host of PS1-10jh displays similar properties. PTF10iam, the one offset event, is different photometrically and spectroscopically from the central events, and its host displays a higher star formation rate. Finding no obvious evidence for ongoing galactic nuclei activity or recent star formation, we conclude that the three central transients likely arise from the tidal disruption of a star by a supermassive black hole. We compare the spectra of these events to tidal disruption candidates from the literature and find that all of these objects can be unified on a continuous scale of spectral properties. The accumulated evidence of this expanded sample strongly supports a tidal disruption origin for this class of nuclear transients.

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“…Relativistic outflows and possibly magnetic acceleration are features that GRBs, active galactic nuclei (AGNs), and microquasars have in common. Stellar tidal disruption by a massive BH is also likely to produce a relativistic jet (Bloom et al 2011;Burrows et al 2011;Levan et al 2011;Zauderer et al 2011;Cenko 2012). By studying and comparing the properties of these objects, we could gain an insight into the processes that govern the formation of relativistic jets (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Low-Γ Jets From Compact Stellar Mergers: Candidate Electromagnetic Counterparts to Gravitational Wave Sources

Lamb

Kobayashi

2016

ApJ

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Short gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are believed to be produced by relativistic jets from mergers of neutron stars (NSs) or NSs and black-holes (BHs). If the Lorentz-factorsΓof jets from compact stellar mergers follow a similar power-law distribution to those observed for other high-energy astrophysical phenomena (e.g., blazars, active galactic nuclei), the population of jets should be dominated by low-Γ outflows. These jets will not produce prompt gamma-rays, but jet energy will be released as X-ray/optical/radio transients when they collide with the ambient medium. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we study the properties of such transients. Approximately 78% of merger jets <300 Mpc result in failed GRBs if the jet Γ follows a power-law distribution of index −1.75. X-ray/ optical transients from failed GRBs will have broad distributions of their characteristics: light-curves peak -t 0.1 10 p days after a merger; flux peaks for X-ray   , for well localized sources on the sky. X-ray/optical transients are followed by radio transients with peak times narrowly clustered aroundt 10 p days, and peak flux of ∼10-100 mJy at 10 GHz and ∼0.1 mJy at 150 MHz. By considering the all-sky rate of short GRBs within the LIGO/Virgo range, the rate of on-axis orphan afterglows from failed GRBs should be 2.6(26) per year for NS-NS (NS-BH) mergers, respectively. Since merger jets from gravitational-wave (GW) trigger events tend to be directed to us, a significant fraction of GW events could be associated with the on-axis orphan afterglow.

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Swift J2058.4+0516: Discovery of a Possible Second Relativistic Tidal Disruption Flare?

Cited by 312 publications

References 71 publications

Illuminating Massive Black Holes With White Dwarfs: Orbital Dynamics and High-Energy Transients From Tidal Interactions

Illuminating Massive Black Holes With White Dwarfs: Orbital Dynamics and High-Energy Transients From Tidal Interactions

A CONTINUUM OF H- TO He-RICH TIDAL DISRUPTION CANDIDATES WITH A PREFERENCE FOR E+A GALAXIES

Low-Γ Jets From Compact Stellar Mergers: Candidate Electromagnetic Counterparts to Gravitational Wave Sources

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