AT2023vto: An Exceptionally Luminous Helium Tidal Disruption Event from a Massive Star
Harsh Kumar, Edo Berger, Daichi Hiramatsu, Sebastian Gomez, Peter K. Blanchard, Yvette Cendes, K. Azalee Bostroem, Joseph Farah, Estefania Padilla Gonzalez, And… 展开作者
Harsh Kumar, Edo Berger, Daichi Hiramatsu, Sebastian Gomez, Peter K. Blanchard, Yvette Cendes, K. Azalee Bostroem, Joseph Farah, Estefania Padilla Gonzalez, Andrew Howell, Curtis McCully, Megan Newsome, Giacomo Terreran
研究通过光学/紫外光变与光谱将 AT2023vto 分类为极亮 TDE-He，建模显示其源于约9倍太阳质量恒星被千万倍太阳质量黑洞瓦解，并连接 TDE 与 ANT 群体。
摘要：
我们展示了瞬变源 AT2023vto 的光学/紫外观测及光谱分类，将其认定为红移 z = 0.4846 处的一次潮汐瓦解事件（TDE）。其光谱以一条宽的 He II λ4686 发射线为主，宽度约为 3.76 × 10^4 km/s，并具有约 1.05 × 10^4 km/s 的蓝移，据此将其归类为 TDE-He 类成员。光变曲线呈现较长的上升和衰减时标，峰值绝对星等很大，M_g 约为 -23.6，使其成为迄今为止发现的经典光学 TDE（H、H+He、He 类）中最明亮者，亮度高出约 2 个星等（与该群体平均值相比约高 4 个星等）。在整个演化过程中，光变曲线保持 g - r 约 -0.4 mag 的持续蓝色，与其他 TDE 相似，但不同于超新星。我们在 Pan-STARRS 存档图像中证认了 AT2023vto 的宿主星系，发现该瞬变源位于星系中心，并推断其中心黑洞质量约为 10^7 M⊙。对 AT2023vto 光变曲线建模后，我们发现它源于一颗约 9 M⊙ 的恒星被一个约 10^7 M⊙ 的超大质量黑洞瓦解。该恒星质量约为此前 TDE 中推断出的最高恒星质量的 5 倍，而黑洞质量处于分布的高端。AT2023vto 在光度和时标上可与一些假定的 TDE（具有蓝色无特征连续谱）以及最近识别出的模糊核瞬变体（ANT）群体的平均值相比，尽管后者在光谱上不同且往往具有更长的时标。人们曾推测 ANT 来自大质量恒星的潮汐瓦解，或许发生在活动星系核中；AT2023vto 可能代表类似情形，却发生在休眠黑洞中，从而在 TDE 与 ANT 群体之间建立联系。我们预计 Rubin Observatory / LSST 将在至 z ~ 3 的范围内发现类似的明亮 TDE。
英文摘要：
We present optical/UV observations and the spectroscopic classification of the transient AT2023vto as a tidal disruption event (TDE) at z = 0.4846. The spectrum is dominated by a broad He II $λ$4686 emission line, with a width of ~ $3.76 \times 10^4$ km/s and a blueshift of ~ $1.05 \times 10^4$ km/s, classifying it as a member of the TDE-He class. The light curve exhibits a long rise and decline timescale, with a large peak absolute magnitude of M$_g$ ~ -23.6, making it the most luminous of the classical optical TDEs (H, H+He, He) discovered to date by about 2 mag (and ~ 4 mag compared to the mean of the population). The light curve exhibits a persistent blue color of g - r ~ -0.4 mag throughout its evolution, similar to other TDEs, but distinct from supernovae. We identify the host galaxy of AT2023vto in archival Pan-STARRS images and find that the transient is located at the galaxy center, and that its inferred central black hole mass is ~ $10^7~M_{\odot}$. Modeling the light curves of AT2023vto, we find that it resulted from the disruption of a ~ 9 $M_{\odot}$ star by a ~$10^7~M_{\odot}$ supermassive black hole. The star mass is about 5 times larger than the highest star masses previously inferred in TDEs, and the black hole mass is at the high end of the distribution. AT2023vto is comparable in luminosity and timescale to some putative TDEs (with a blue featureless continuum), as well as to the mean of the recently identified population of ambiguous nuclear transients (ANTs), although the latter are spectroscopically distinct and tend to have longer timescales. ANTs have been speculated to arise from tidal disruptions of massive stars, perhaps in active galactic nuclei, and AT2023vto may represent a similar case but in a dormant black hole, thereby bridging the TDE and ANT populations. We anticipate that Rubin Observatory / LSST will uncover similar luminous TDEs to z ~ 3.
The ~10% of tidal disruption events (TDEs) due to stars more massive than the Sun should show abundance anomalies due to stellar evolution in helium, carbon and nitrogen, but not oxygen. Helium is always enhanced, but only by up to ~25% on average because it becomes inaccessible once it is sequestered in the high density core as the star leaves the main sequence. However, portions of the debris associated with the disrupted core of a main sequence star can be enhanced in helium by factors of 2-3 for debris at a common orbital period. These helium abundance variations may be a contributor to th…
Thermonuclear X-ray bursts from accreting neutron stars power brief but strong irradiation of their surroundings, providing a unique way to study accretion physics. We analyze MAXI/GSC and Swift/XRT spectra of a day-long flash observed from IGR J17062-6143 in 2015. It is a rare case of recurring bursts at a low accretion luminosity of 0.15% Eddington. Spectra from MAXI, Chandra, and NuSTAR observations taken between the 2015 burst and the previous one in 2012 are used to determine the accretion column. We find it to be consistent with the burst ignition column of 5x10^10 g cm^-2, which indicat…
We study the emission properties of thermonuclear explosions in a helium white dwarf (WD) tidal disruption event (TDE). We consider a TDE where a 0.2 $M_{\odot}$ helium WD is disrupted by a $10^{2.5}\,M_{\odot}$ intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH). The helium WD is not only tidally disrupted but is also detonated by the tidal compression and by succeeding shocks. We focus on the emission powered by radioactive nuclei in the unbound TDE ejecta. We perform hydrodynamic simulations coupled with nuclear reactions, post-process detailed nucleosynthesis calculations, and then radiative transfer simu…
We report the discovery of non-stellar hydrogen Balmer and metastable helium absorption lines accompanying a transient, high-velocity (0.05$c$) broad absorption line (BAL) system in the optical spectra of the tidal disruption event (TDE) AT2018zr ($z=0.071$). In the HST UV spectra, absorption of high- and low-ionization lines are also present at this velocity, making AT2018zr resemble a low-ionization broad absorption line (LoBAL) QSO. We conclude that these transient absorption features are more likely to arise in fast outflows produced by the TDE than absorbed by the unbound debris. In accor…
The development of a new generation of theoretical models for tidal disruptions is timely, as increasingly diverse events are being captured in surveys of the transient sky. Recently, Gezari et al. reported a discovery of a new class of tidal disruption events: the disruption of a helium-rich stellar core, thought to be a remnant of a red giant (RG) star. Motivated by this discovery and in anticipation of others, we consider tidal interaction of an RG star with a supermassive black hole (SMBH) which leads to the stripping of the stellar envelope and subsequent inspiral of the compact core towa…
Observations of luminous flares resulting from the possible tidal disruption of stars by supermassive black holes have raised a number of puzzles. Outstanding questions include the origin of the optical and ultraviolet (UV) flux, the weakness of hydrogen lines in the spectrum, and the occasional simultaneous observation of x-rays. Here we study the emission from tidal disruption events (TDEs) produced as radiation from black hole accretion propagates through an extended, optically thick envelope formed from stellar debris. We analytically describe key physics controlling spectrum formation, an…
Was PS1-10jh (Gezari et al. 2012), an optical/UV transient discovered by the Pan-STARRS Medium Deep Survey, the tidal disruption of a star by a massive black hole? We address two aspects of the problem: the composition of the putative disrupted object (using the spectroscopic data), and the energetics of the observed gas and radiation (using the photometric data). We perform photoionization calculations and compare with the observed lower limit of the line ratio L(He II 4686)/L(Halpha) > 5 to argue that this event was not the disruption of a solar-type star, and instead was likely the disrupti…
Owing to their thermal emission, tidal disruption events (TDEs) were regularly detected in the soft X-rays and sometimes in the optical. Only a few TDEs have been detected at hard X-rays: two are high redshift beamed events, one of which occurred at the core of a nearby galaxy, and the most recent one is of a different nature, involving a compact object in the Milky Way. The aims of this work are to obtain a first sample of hard X-ray-selected unbeamed TDEs, to determine their frequency and to probe whether TDEs usually or exceptionally emit at hard X-ray energies. We performed extensive searc…
We present Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) observations of the tidal disruption flare AT2018zr/PS18kh reported by Holoien et al. and detected during ZTF commissioning. The ZTF light curve of the tidal disruption event (TDE) samples the rise-to-peak exceptionally well, with 50 days of g- and r-band detections before the time of maximum light. We also present our multi-wavelength follow-up observations, including the detection of a thermal (kT~100 eV) X-ray source that is two orders of magnitude fainter than the contemporaneous optical/UV blackbody luminosity, and a stringent upper limit to the …
ASASSN-14li is a recently-discovered tidal disruption event with an exceptionally rich data-set: spectra and lightcurves in soft X-rays, UV, optical, and radio. To understand its emission properties in all these bands, we have extended our model for post-tidal disruption accretion and photon production to estimate both soft X-ray radiation produced by the prompt accretion phase and synchrotron emission associated with the bow shock driven through an external medium by the unbound tidal debris, as well as optical and UV light. We find that fiducial values of the stellar mass ($1 M_\odot$) and b…
We present the first simulations of the tidal disruption of stars with realistic structures and compositions by massive black holes (BHs). We build stars in the stellar evolution code MESA and simulate their disruption in the 3D adaptive-mesh hydrodynamics code FLASH, using an extended Helmholtz equation of state and tracking 49 elements. We study the disruption of a 1$M_\odot$ star and 3$M_\odot$ star at zero-age main sequence (ZAMS), middle-age, and terminal-age main sequence (TAMS). The maximum BH mass for tidal disruption increases by a factor of $\sim$2 from stellar radius changes due to …
We report the discovery by the intermediate Palomar Transient Factory (iPTF) of a candidate tidal disruption event (TDE) iPTF16axa at $z=0.108$, and present its broadband photometric and spectroscopic evolution from 3 months of follow-up observations with ground-based telescopes and Swift. The light curve is well fitted with a $t^{-5/3}$ decay, and we constrain the rise-time to peak to be $<$49 rest-frame days after disruption, which is roughly consistent with the fallback timescale expected for the $\sim 5\times$10$^{6}$ $M_\odot$ black hole inferred from the stellar velocity dispersion of th…
We suggest "tidal double detonation": a new mechanism for a thermonuclear explosion of a white dwarf (WD) induced by a tidal disruption event (TDE). Tidal detonation is also a WD explosion induced by a TDE. In this case, helium (He) and carbon-oxygen (CO) detonation waves incinerate He~WD and CO~WD, respectively. On the other hand, for tidal double detonation, He detonation is first excited in the He shell of a CO~WD, and drives CO detonation in the CO core. We name this mechanism after the double detonation scenario in the context of type Ia supernovae. In this paper, we show tidal double det…
The origins of the high-energy cosmic neutrino flux remain largely unknown. Recently, one high-energy neutrino was associated with a tidal disruption event (TDE). Here we present AT2019fdr, an exceptionally luminous TDE candidate, coincident with another high-energy neutrino. Our observations, including a bright dust echo and soft late-time X-ray emission, further support a TDE origin of this flare. The probability of finding two such bright events by chance is just 0.034%. We evaluate several models for neutrino production and show that AT2019fdr is capable of producing the observed high-ener…
Tidal disruption events (TDEs), in which stars are gravitationally disrupted as they pass close to the supermassive black holes in the centres of galaxies, are potentially important probes of strong gravity and accretion physics. Most TDEs have been discovered in large-area monitoring surveys of many 1000s of galaxies, and the rate deduced for such events is relatively low: one event every 10$^4$ - 10$^5$ years per galaxy. However, given the selection effects inherent in such surveys, considerable uncertainties remain about the conditions that favour TDEs. Here we report the detection of unusu…
UV and optically selected candidates for stellar tidal disruption events (TDE) often exhibit broad spectral features (HeII emission, H$α$ emission, or absorption lines) on a blackbody-like continuum (1e4K<T<1e5K). The lines presumably emit from TDE debris or circumnuclear clouds photoionized by the flare. Line velocities however are much lower than expected from a stellar disruption by supermassive black hole (SMBH), and are somewhat faster than expected for the broad line region (BLR) clouds of a persistently active galactic nucleus (AGN). The distinctive spectral states are not strongly rela…
We use a simple framework to calculate the time evolution of the composition of the fallback material onto a supermassive black hole arising from the tidal disruption of main sequence stars. We study stars with masses between 0.8 and 3.0 $M_\odot$, at evolutionary stages from zero-age main sequence to terminal-age main sequence, built using the Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics code. We show that most stars develop enhancements in nitrogen ($^{14}$N) and depletions in carbon ($^{12}$C) and oxygen ($^{16}$O) over their lifetimes, and that these features are more pronounced for hig…
We report here radio follow-up observations of the optical Tidal Disruption Event (TDE) AT 2019azh. Previously reported X-ray observations of this TDE showed variability at early times and a dramatic increase in luminosity, by a factor of $\sim 10$, about 8 months after optical discovery. The X-ray emission is mainly dominated by intermediate hard--soft X-rays and is exceptionally soft around the X-ray peak, which is $L_X \sim 10^{43} \rm \, erg \, s^{-1}$. The high cadence $15.5$ GHz observations reported here show an early rise in radio emission followed by an approximately constant light cu…
The bright transient AT2018cow has been unlike any other known type of transient. Its high brightness, rapid rise and decay and initially nearly featureless spectrum are unprecedented and difficult to explain using models for similar burst sources. We present evidence for faint gamma-ray emission continuing for at least 8 days, and featureless spectra in the ultraviolet bands -- both unusual for eruptive sources. The X-ray variability of the source has a burst-like character. The UV-optical spectrum does not show any CNO line but is well described by a blackbody. We demonstrate that a model in…
A new class of faint, spectroscopically peculiar transients has emerged in the last decade. We term these events "calcium-strong transients" (CaSTs) because of their atypically high calcium-to-oxygen nebular line ratios. Previous studies have struggled to deduce the identity of their progenitors due to a combination of their extremely extended radial distributions with respect to their host galaxies and their relatively high rate of occurrence. In this work, we find that the CaST radial distribution is consistent with the radial distribution of two populations of stars: old (ages > 5 Gyr), low…
We demonstrate tidal detonation during a tidal disruption event (TDE) of a helium (He) white dwarf (WD) with $0.45M_\odot$ by an intermediate mass black hole (IMBH) by extremely high-resolution simulations. Tanikawa et al. (2017) have showed tidal detonation in previous studies results from unphysical heating due to low-resolution simulations, and such unphysical heating occurs in 3-dimensional (3D) smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations even with $10$ million SPH particles. In order to avoid such unphysical heating, we perform 3D SPH simulations up to $300$ million SPH particles, a…
While tidal disruption events (TDEs) have long been heralded as laboratories for the study of quiescent black holes, the small number of known TDEs and uncertainties in their emission mechanism have hindered progress towards this promise. Here present 17 new TDEs that have been detected recently by the Zwicky Transient Facility along with Swift UV and X-ray follow-up observations. Our homogeneous analysis of the optical/UV light curves, including 22 previously known TDEs from the literature, reveals a clean separation of light curve properties with spectroscopic class. The TDEs with Bowen fluo…
The BL Lacertae OJ 287 is a supermassive black holes binary (SMBHB) system with complex physics of its irregular flares. During 2016 October -- 2017 April period, a surprising outburst in the X-ray, UV and optical bands was detected, while no variability was seen in the $γ$-ray light curve. During the outburst, the X-ray light curves were dominated by the soft X-rays, whose peak in the luminosity was $\sim$ $10^{46}\text{erg}~\text{s}^{-1}$ -- more than 10 times higher than the mean level before the outburst -- and a "softer-when-brighter" phenomenon was exhibited. These above phenomena have b…
A significant number of tidal disruption events (TDEs) radiate primarily at optical and ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths, with only weak soft X-ray components. One model for this optical excess proposes that thermal X-ray emission from a compact accretion disc is reprocessed to longer wavelengths by an optically thick envelope. Here, we explore this reprocessing scenario in the context of an optically thick accretion disc wind. Using state-of-the-art Monte Carlo radiative transfer and ionization software, we produce synthetic UV and optical spectra for wind and disc-hosting TDEs. Our models are in…
We present ground-based and Swift photometric and spectroscopic observations of the candidate tidal disruption event (TDE) ASASSN-14li, found at the center of PGC 043234 ($d\simeq90$ Mpc) by the All-Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN). The source had a peak bolometric luminosity of $L\simeq10^{44}$ ergs s$^{-1}$ and a total integrated energy of $E\simeq7\times10^{50}$ ergs radiated over the $\sim6$ months of observations presented. The UV/optical emission of the source is well-fit by a blackbody with roughly constant temperature of $T\sim35,000$ K, while the luminosity declines by ro…
We construct time-dependent one-dimensional (vertically averaged) models of accretion disks produced by the tidal disruption of a white dwarf (WD) by a binary neutron star (NS) companion. Nuclear reactions in the disk midplane burn the WD matter to increasingly heavier elements at sequentially smaller radii, releasing substantial energy which can impact the disk dynamics. A model for disk outflows is employed, by which cooling from the outflow balances other sources of heating (viscous, nuclear) in regulating the Bernoulli parameter of the midplane to a fixed value $\lesssim 0$. We perform a c…
VLASS tidal disruption events with optical flares II: discovery of two TDEs with intermediate width Balmer emission lines and connections to the ambiguous extreme coronal line emitters
We present ground-based and Swift photometric and spectroscopic observations of the tidal disruption event (TDE) ASASSN-15oi, discovered at the center of 2MASX J20390918-3045201 ($d\simeq216$ Mpc) by the All-Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN). The source peaked at a bolometric luminosity of $L\simeq1.3\times10^{44}$ ergs s$^{-1}$ and radiated a total energy of $E\simeq6.6\times10^{50}$ ergs over the first $\sim3.5$ months of observations. The early optical/UV emission of the source can be fit by a blackbody with temperature increasing from $T\sim2\times10^4$ K to $T\sim4\times10^4$ …
Type-Iax supernovae (SN Iax) are stellar explosions that are spectroscopically similar to some type-Ia supernovae (SN Ia) at maximum light, except with lower ejecta velocities. They are also distinguished by lower luminosities. At late times, their spectroscopic properties diverge from other SN, but their composition (dominated by iron-group and intermediate-mass elements) suggests a physical connection to normal SN Ia. These are not rare; SN Iax occur at a rate between 5 and 30% of the normal SN Ia rate. The leading models for SN Iax are thermonuclear explosions of accreting carbon-oxygen whi…
The immense tidal forces of massive black holes can rip apart stars that come too close to them. As the resulting stellar debris spirals inwards, it heats up and emits x-rays when near the black hole. Here, we report the discovery of an exceptionally stable 131-second x-ray quasi-periodicity from a black hole after it disrupted a star. Using a black hole mass indicated from host galaxy scaling relations implies that, (1) this periodicity originates from very close to the black hole's event horizon, and (2) the black hole is rapidly spinning. Our findings suggest that other disruption events wi…
With the sample of observed tidal disruption events (TDEs) now reaching several tens, distinct spectroscopic classes have emerged: TDEs with only hydrogen lines (TDE-H), only helium lines (TDE-He), or hydrogen in combination with He II and often N III/O III (TDE-H+He). Here we model the light curves of 32 optically-bright TDEs using the Modular Open Source Fitter for Transients (MOSFiT) to estimate physical and orbital properties, and look for statistical differences between the spectroscopic classes. For all types, we find a shallow distribution of star masses, compared to a typical initial m…
An End-to-End Numerical Framework for Tidal Disruption Events with AthenaK
Tsung-Dao Lee Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交大李政道研究所）；The Hong Kong Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, The University of Hong Kong（香港大学天文及大气物理研究所）；Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas (MoE) and School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交通大学物理与天文学院激光等离子体教育部重点实验室）；Collaborative Innovation Center of IFSA, Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交通大学国际前沿科学协同创新中心）；School of Natural Sciences, Institute for Advanced Study（高等研究院自然科学院）；Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University（普林斯顿大学天体物理科学系）；Department of Astronomy, Tsinghua University（清华大学天文系）
After the successful detection of a gravitational-wave (GW) signal and its associated electromagnetic (EM) counterparts from GW170817, neutron star--black hole (NSBH) mergers have been highly expected to be the next type of multi-messenger source. However, despite the detection of several of NSBH merger candidates during the GW third observation run, no confirmed EM counterparts from these sources have been identified. The most plausible explanation is that these NSBH merger candidates were plunging events mainly because the primary BHs had near-zero projected aligned-spins based on GW observa…
Spectroscopically, TDEs are characterized by broad ( 10$^{4}$ km/s) emission lines and show large diversity as well as different line profiles. After carefully and consistently performing a series of data reduction tasks including host galaxy light subtraction, we present here the first detailed, spectroscopic population study of 16 optical/UV TDEs. We report a time lag between the peaks of the optical light-curves and the peak luminosity of H$α$ spanning between 7 - 45 days. If interpreted as light-echoes, these lags correspond to distances of 2 - 12 x 10$^{16}$ cm, one to two orders of magni…
We present late-time observations of the tidal disruption event candidate PS1-10jh. UV and optical imaging with HST/WFC3 localize the transient to be coincident with the host galaxy nucleus to an accuracy of 0.023 arcsec, corresponding to 66 pc. The UV flux in the F225W filter, measured 3.35 rest-frame years after the peak of the nuclear flare, is consistent with a decline that continues to follow a $t^{-5/3}$ power-law with no spectral evolution. Late epochs of optical spectroscopy obtained with MMT ~ 2 and 4 years after the peak, enable a clean subtraction of the host galaxy from the early s…
Optical/infrared observations of the extraordinary GRB 250702B: a highly obscured afterglow in a massive galaxy consistent with multiple possible progenitors
本文通过多台望远镜的光学/红外观测研究最长伽马射线暴 GRB 250702B，发现其高度遮蔽的余辉来自相对论性喷流，宿主为正在并合的大质量富尘星系，并指出多种 progenitor 情景均可解释观测结果。
INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma（意大利国家天体物理研究所罗马天文台）；Università Tor Vergata, Dipartimento di Fisica（托尔维尔加塔大学物理系）；Astronomical Institute, Faculty for Physics and Astronomy, Ruhr University Bochum（鲁尔大学波鸿分校物理与天文学学院天文研究所）；Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias and Departamento de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna（加那利天体物理研究所和拉帕拉马大学天体物理学系）；Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)（西班牙高等科学研究委员会）；Dipartimento di Fisica “M. Merlin（巴里大学和巴里理工大学“M.梅林”物理系）；Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Bari（意大利国家核物理研究所巴里分部）
One year of broadband radio monitoring of the enigmatic transient GRB 250702B reveals the evolution of the relativistic jet
International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research – Curtin University（国际射电天文研究中心 - 科廷大学）；Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley（加州大学伯克利分校天文学系）；Berkeley Center for Multi-messenger Research on Astrophysical Transients and Outreach (Multi-RAPTOR), University of California, Berkeley（加州大学伯克利分校多信使天体物理瞬变源研究与外展中心 (Multi-RAPTOR)）；School of Natural Sciences, Institute for Advanced Study（高等研究院自然科学学院）
