- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/852/72
- Title:
- Luminosity functions of tidal disruption flares
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/852/72
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- The tidal disruption of a star by a massive black hole is expected to yield a luminous flare of thermal emission. About two dozen of these stellar tidal disruption flares (TDFs) may have been detected in optical transient surveys. However, explaining the observed properties of these events within the tidal disruption paradigm is not yet possible. This theoretical ambiguity has led some authors to suggest that optical TDFs are due to a different process, such as a nuclear supernova or accretion disk instabilities. Here we present a test of a fundamental prediction of the tidal disruption event scenario: a suppression of the flare rate due to the direct capture of stars by the black hole. Using a recently compiled sample of candidate TDFs with black hole mass measurements, plus a careful treatment of selection effects in this flux-limited sample, we confirm that the dearth of observed TDFs from high-mass black holes is statistically significant. All the TDF impostor models we consider fail to explain the observed mass function; the only scenario that fits the data is a suppression of the rate due to direct captures. We find that this suppression can explain the low volumetric rate of the luminous TDF candidate ASASSN-15lh, thus supporting the hypothesis that this flare belongs to the TDF family. Our work is the first to present the optical TDF luminosity function. A steep power law is required to explain the observed rest-frame g-band luminosity, dN/dL_g_{propto}L_g_^-2.5^. The mean event rate of the flares in our sample is ~1x10^-4^galaxy^-1^/yr, consistent with the theoretically expected tidal disruption rate.
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- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJS/252/32
- Title:
- MIR outbursts in nearby SDSS gal. (MIRONG). I.
- Short Name:
- J/ApJS/252/32
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- 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 0.5mag 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{mu}m_>10^42^erg/s) 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 (changing-look) 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.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/MNRAS/455/2918
- Title:
- Photometry & line luminosities for ASASSN-14li
- Short Name:
- J/MNRAS/455/2918
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We present ground-based and Swift photometric and spectroscopic observations of the candidate tidal disruption event (TDE) ASASSN-14li, found at the centre of PGC 043234 (d~90 Mpc) by the All-Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN). The source had a peak bolometric luminosity of L~10^44^ erg/s and a total integrated energy of E~7x10^50^ erg radiated over the ~6 months of observations presented. The UV/optical emission of the source is well fitted by a blackbody with roughly constant temperature of T~35000 K, while the luminosity declines by roughly a factor of 16 over this time. The optical/UV luminosity decline is broadly consistent with an exponential decline, L{prop.to}e^-t/t0^, with t_0_~60 d. ASASSN-14li also exhibits soft X-ray emission comparable in luminosity to the optical and UV emission but declining at a slower rate, and the X-ray emission now dominates. Spectra of the source show broad Balmer and helium lines in emission as well as strong blue continuum emission at all epochs. We use the discoveries of ASASSN-14li and ASASSN-14ae to estimate the TDE rate implied by ASAS-SN, finding an average rate of r~4.1x10^-5^/yr per galaxy with a 90 per cent confidence interval of (2.2-17.0)x10^-5^/yr per galaxy. ASAS-SN found roughly 1 TDE for every 70 Type Ia supernovae in 2014, a rate that is much higher than that of other surveys.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/899/136
- Title:
- TESS light curve of AGN NGC 4395
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/899/136
- Date:
- 03 Dec 2021 13:06:51
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We present optical light curves from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) for the archetypical dwarf active galactic nucleus (AGN) in the nearby galaxy NGC 4395 hosting a ~105M{sun} supermassive black hole (SMBH). Significant variability is detected on timescales from weeks to hours before reaching the background noise level. The ~month-long, 30 minute-cadence, high-precision TESS light curve can be well fit by a simple damped random walk (DRW) model, with the damping timescale {tau}DRW constrained to be 2.3_-0.7_^+1.8^days (1{sigma}). NGC 4395 lies almost exactly on the extrapolation of the {tau }_DRW_-M_BH_ relation measured for AGNs with BH masses that are more than three orders of magnitude larger. The optical variability periodogram can be well fit by a broken power law with the high-frequency slope (-1.88{+/-}0.15) and the characteristic timescale ({tau}_br_=1/(2{pi}f_br_)=1.4_-0.5_^+1.9^days) consistent with the DRW model within 1{sigma}. This work demonstrates the power of TESS light curves in identifying low-mass accreting SMBHs with optical variability, and a potential global {tau}_DRW}_-M_BH_ relation that can be used to estimate SMBH masses with optical variability measurements.
