1. A loud quasi-periodic oscillation after a star is disrupted by a massive black hole
- Author
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Alessia Franchini, P. Chris Fragile, Deepto Chakrabarty, Nicholas C. Stone, Frederick K. Baganoff, Eric R. Coughlin, James F. Steiner, Nishanth R. Pasham, Dheeraj R. Pasham, Jeroen Homan, Ronald A. Remillard, Giuseppe Lodato, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Pasham, Dheeraj Ranga Reddy, Remillard, Ronald A, Homan, Jeroen, Chakrabarty, Deepto, Baganoff, Frederick K, Steiner, James F, Pasham, D, Remillard, R, Chris Fragile, P, Franchini, A, Stone, N, Lodato, G, Homan, J, Chakrabarty, D, Baganoff, F, Steiner, J, Coughlin, E, and Pasham, N
- Subjects
Physics ,Multidisciplinary ,010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences ,Event horizon ,Astrophysics::High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena ,Astrophysics ,Astrophysics::Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics ,01 natural sciences ,Galaxy ,Highly sensitive ,Black hole ,Stars ,General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology ,0103 physical sciences ,Tidal force ,black hole physics, accretion ,Astrophysics::Earth and Planetary Astrophysics ,010303 astronomy & astrophysics ,Astrophysics::Galaxy Astrophysics ,0105 earth and related environmental sciences - Abstract
The tidal forces close to massive black holes can rip apart stars that come too close to them. As the resulting stellar debris spirals toward the black hole, the debris heats up and emits x-rays. We report observations of a stable 131-second x-ray quasi-periodic oscillation from the tidal disruption event ASASSN-14li. Assuming the black hole mass indicated by host galaxy scaling relations, these observations imply that the periodicity originates from close to the event horizon and that the black hole is rapidly spinning. Our findings demonstrate that tidal disruption events can generate quasi-periodic oscillations that encode information about the physical properties of their black holes., United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Grant PF6-170156), United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Grant PF6-170150), United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Grant PF5-160144), United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Grant PF5-160145), United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Award SV2-82023)
- Published
- 2017