1. A very luminous jet from the disruption of a star by a massive black hole
- Author
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Andreoni, Igor, Coughlin, Michael W., Perley, Daniel A., Yao, Yuhan, Lu, Wenbin, Cenko, S. Bradley, Kumar, Harsh, Anand, Shreya, Ho, Anna Y. Q., Kasliwal, Mansi M., de Ugarte Postigo, Antonio, Sagués-Carracedo, Ana, Schulze, Steve, Kann, D. Alexander, Kulkarni, S. R., Sollerman, Jesper, Tanvir, Nial, Rest, Armin, Izzo, Luca, Somalwar, Jean J., Kaplan, David L., Ahumada, Tomás, Anupama, G. C., Auchettl, Katie, Barway, Sudhanshu, Bellm, Eric C., Bhalerao, Varun, Bloom, Joshua S., Bremer, Michael, Bulla, Mattia, Burns, Eric, Campana, Sergio, Chandra, Poonam, Charalampopoulos, Panos, Cooke, Jeff, D’Elia, Valerio, Das, Kaustav Kashyap, Dobie, Dougal, Fernández, José Feliciano Agüí, Freeburn, James, Fremling, Cristoffer, Gezari, Suvi, Goode, Simon, Graham, Matthew J., Hammerstein, Erica, Karambelkar, Viraj R., Kilpatrick, Charles D., Kool, Erik C., Krips, Melanie, Laher, Russ R., Leloudas, Giorgos, Levan, Andrew, Lundquist, Michael J., Mahabal, Ashish A., Medford, Michael S., Miller, M. Coleman, Möller, Anais, Mooley, Kunal P., Nayana, A. J., Nir, Guy, Pang, Peter T. H., Paraskeva, Emmy, Perley, Richard A., Petitpas, Glen, Pursiainen, Miika, Ravi, Vikram, Ridden-Harper, Ryan, Riddle, Reed, Rigault, Mickael, Rodriguez, Antonio C., Rusholme, Ben, Sharma, Yashvi, Smith, I. A., Stein, Robert D., Thöne, Christina, Tohuvavohu, Aaron, Valdes, Frank, van Roestel, Jan, Vergani, Susanna D., Wang, Qinan, and Zhang, Jielai
- Abstract
Tidal disruption events (TDEs) are bursts of electromagnetic energy that are released when supermassive black holes at the centres of galaxies violently disrupt a star that passes too close1. TDEs provide a window through which to study accretion onto supermassive black holes; in some rare cases, this accretion leads to launching of a relativistic jet2–9, but the necessary conditions are not fully understood. The best-studied jetted TDE so far is Swift J1644+57, which was discovered in γ-rays, but was too obscured by dust to be seen at optical wavelengths. Here we report the optical detection of AT2022cmc, a rapidly fading source at cosmological distance (redshift z= 1.19325) the unique light curve of which transitioned into a luminous plateau within days. Observations of a bright counterpart at other wavelengths, including X-ray, submillimetre and radio, supports the interpretation of AT2022cmc as a jetted TDE containing a synchrotron ‘afterglow’, probably launched by a supermassive black hole with spin greater than approximately 0.3. Using four years of Zwicky Transient Facility10survey data, we calculate a rate of 0.02−0.01+0.04per gigapascals cubed per year for on-axis jetted TDEs on the basis of the luminous, fast-fading red component, thus providing a measurement complementary to the rates derived from X-ray and radio observations11. Correcting for the beaming angle effects, this rate confirms that approximately 1 per cent of TDEs have relativistic jets. Optical surveys can use AT2022cmc as a prototype to unveil a population of jetted TDEs.
- Published
- 2022
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