A relativistic jetted outburst from a massive black hole fed by a tidally disrupted star
JS Bloom
D Giannios
BD Metzger
SB Cenko
DA Perley
NR Butler
NR Tanvir
AJ Levan
PTO Brien
LE Strubbe
FD Colle
E Ramirez-Ruiz
WH Lee
S Nayakshin
E Quataert
AR King
A Cucchiara
J Guillochon
GC Bower
AS Fruchter
AN Morgan
AJVD Horst
2381/45995
https://figshare.le.ac.uk/articles/journal_contribution/A_relativistic_jetted_outburst_from_a_massive_black_hole_fed_by_a_tidally_disrupted_star/10201877
While gas accretion onto some massive black holes (MBHs) at the centers of galaxies actively powers luminous emission, the vast majority of MBHs are considered dormant. Occasionally, a star passing too near a MBH is torn apart by gravitational forces, leading to a bright panchromatic tidal disruption flare (TDF). While the high-energy transient Swift J164449.3+573451 ("Sw 1644+57") initially displayed none of the theoretically anticipated (nor previously observed) TDF characteristics, we show that the observations (Levan et al. 2011) suggest a sudden accretion event onto a central MBH of mass ~10^6-10^7 solar masses. We find evidence for a mildly relativistic outflow, jet collimation, and a spectrum characterized by synchrotron and inverse Compton processes; this leads to a natural analogy of Sw 1644+57 with a smaller-scale blazar. The phenomenologically novel Sw 1644+57 thus connects the study of TDFs and active galaxies, opening a new vista on disk-jet interactions in BHs and magnetic field generation and transport in accretion systems.
2019-10-21 14:16:39
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