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Title: Six months of multiwavelength follow-up of the tidal disruption candidate ASASSN-14li and implied TDE rates from ASAS-SN

Journal Article · · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
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  1. The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States). Dept. of Astronomy. Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics (CCAPP)
  2. Diego Portales Univ., Santiago (Chile). Dept. of Astronomy; Millennium Inst. of Astrophysics, Santiago (Chile)
  3. Peking Univ., Beijing (China). Kavli Inst. for Astronomy and Astrophysics
  4. Carnegie Observatories, Pasadena, CA (United States)
  5. Morehead State Univ., Morehead, KY (United States). Dept. of Earth and Space Science
  6. The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States). Dept. of Astronomy
  7. The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States). Dept. of Astronomy; Grove City High School, OH (United States)
  8. The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States). Dept. of Astronomy. Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics (CCAPP). Dept. of Physics
  9. Liverpool John Moores Univ. (United Kingdom). Astrophysics Research Inst.
  10. Coral Towers Observatory, Cairns, QLD (Australia)
  11. Whipple Observatory, Amado, AZ (United States)
  12. Warsaw Univ. Astronomical Observatory (Poland)
  13. Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
  14. The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States). Dept. of Astronomy; Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States). LBT Observatory
  15. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

In this paper, 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 ≃ 1044 erg s-1 and a total integrated energy of E ≃ 7 × 1050 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 ~ 35 000 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∝e-t/t0, with t0 ≃ 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. Finally, 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 ≃ 4.1 × 10-5 yr-1 per galaxy with a 90 per cent confidence interval of (2.2–17.0) × 10-5 yr-1 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.

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Contributing Organization:
Diego Portales Univ., Santiago (Chile); Peking Univ., Beijing (China); Morehead State Univ., Morehead, KY (United States); Liverpool John Moores Univ. (United Kingdom); Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH (United States)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-06NA25396; FG02-97ER25308
OSTI ID:
1329874
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-15-24845
Journal Information:
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 455, Issue 3; ISSN 0035-8711
Publisher:
Royal Astronomical SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 241 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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The supermassive black hole coincident with the luminous transient ASASSN-15lh journal February 2018
ASASSN-15oi: a rapidly evolving, luminous tidal disruption event at 216 Mpc journal September 2016
The Dark Energy Survey: more than dark energy – an overview journal March 2016
The ASAS-SN bright supernova catalogue – III. 2016 journal August 2017
Long-term radio and X-ray evolution of the tidal disruption event ASASSN-14li journal January 2018
Gaia transients in galactic nuclei journal August 2018
Streams collision as possible precursor of double tidal disruption events journal January 2019
The ASAS-SN bright supernova catalogue – IV. 2017 journal January 2019
PS1-13cbe: the rapid transition of a Seyfert 2 to a Seyfert 1 journal June 2019
Black hole masses of tidal disruption event host galaxies II journal June 2019
The tidal disruption event AT2017eqx: spectroscopic evolution from hydrogen rich to poor suggests an atmosphere and outflow journal July 2019
Evidence for rapid disc formation and reprocessing in the X-ray bright tidal disruption event candidate AT 2018fyk journal July 2019
Optical follow-up of the tidal disruption event iPTF16fnl: new insights from X-shooter observations journal July 2019
Self-intersection of the fallback stream in tidal disruption events journal December 2019
The ASAS-SN catalogue of variable stars III: variables in the southern TESS continuous viewing zone journal February 2019
A loud quasi-periodic oscillation after a star is disrupted by a massive black hole journal January 2019
The Post-starburst Evolution of Tidal Disruption Event Host Galaxies journal January 2017
X-Rays from the Location of the Double-humped Transient ASASSN-15lh journal February 2017
New Physical Insights about Tidal Disruption Events from a Comprehensive Observational Inventory at X-Ray Wavelengths journal April 2017
Revisiting Optical Tidal Disruption Events with iPTF16axa journal June 2017
iPTF16fnl: A Faint and Fast Tidal Disruption Event in an E+A Galaxy journal July 2017
PS16dtm: A Tidal Disruption Event in a Narrow-line Seyfert 1 Galaxy journal July 2017
Periodic Accretion-powered Flares from Colliding EMRIs as TDE Imposters journal July 2017
On the Mass and Luminosity Functions of Tidal Disruption Flares: Rate Suppression due to Black Hole Event Horizons journal January 2018
A Comparison of the X-Ray Emission from Tidal Disruption Events with those of Active Galactic Nuclei journal January 2018
A Dependence of the Tidal Disruption Event Rate on Global Stellar Surface Mass Density and Stellar Velocity Dispersion journal January 2018
What Sets the Line Profiles in Tidal Disruption Events? journal March 2018
Tidal Disruptions of Main-sequence Stars of Varying Mass and Age: Inferences from the Composition of the Fallback Material journal April 2018
A Candidate Tidal Disruption Event in a Quasar at z = 2.359 from Abundance Ratio Variability journal May 2018
On the Missing Energy Puzzle of Tidal Disruption Events journal September 2018
Revealing Dusty Supernovae in High-redshift (Ultra)Luminous Infrared Galaxies through Near-infrared Integrated Light Variability journal October 2018
Weighing Black Holes Using Tidal Disruption Events journal February 2019
The Broad Absorption Line Tidal Disruption Event iPTF15af: Optical and Ultraviolet Evolution journal March 2019
Rapid “Turn-on” of Type-1 AGN in a Quiescent Early-type Galaxy SDSS1115+0544 journal March 2019
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Late-time UV Observations of Tidal Disruption Flares Reveal Unobscured, Compact Accretion Disks journal June 2019
Discovery of Highly Blueshifted Broad Balmer and Metastable Helium Absorption Lines in a Tidal Disruption Event journal July 2019
The Spectral Evolution of AT 2018dyb and the Presence of Metal Lines in Tidal Disruption Events journal December 2019
Implications from Late-time X-Ray Detections of Optically Selected Tidal Disruption Events: State Changes, Unification, and Detection Rates journal February 2020
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The All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) Light Curve Server v1.0 journal August 2017
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Magnetohydrodynamical simulations of a deep tidal disruption in general relativity journal March 2016
Tidal disruptions by rotating black holes: relativistic hydrodynamics with Newtonian codes journal May 2017
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An overabundance of black hole X-ray binaries in the Galactic Centre from tidal captures journal May 2018
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The relative specific Type Ia supernovae rate from three years of ASAS-SN journal January 2019
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Gaia17biu/SN 2017egm in NGC 3191: The Closest Hydrogen-poor Superluminous Supernova to Date Is in a “Normal,” Massive, Metal-rich Spiral Galaxy journal January 2018
Discovery of a Time Lag between the Soft X-Ray and Radio Emission of the Tidal Disruption Flare ASASSN-14li: Evidence for Linear Disk–Jet Coupling journal March 2018
ASASSN-15nx: A Luminous Type II Supernova with a “Perfect” Linear Decline journal July 2018
A Luminous Transient Event in a Sample of WISE -selected Variable AGNs journal October 2018
PS18kh: A New Tidal Disruption Event with a Non-axisymmetric Accretion Disk journal August 2019
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Probing the Bardeen–Petterson Effect in Tidal Disruption Events with Spectral line Reverberation Mapping journal October 2019
Neutrino Emissions from Tidal Disruption Remnants journal November 2019
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High Energy Neutrinos from the Tidal Disruption of Stars text January 2016
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XMMSL1 J074008.2-853927: a tidal disruption event with thermal and non-thermal components text January 2016
New physical insights about Tidal Disruption Events from a comprehensive observational inventory at X-ray wavelengths text January 2016
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A dependence of the tidal disruption event rate on global stellar surface mass density and stellar velocity dispersion text January 2017
On the mass and luminosity functions of tidal disruption flares: rate suppression due to black hole event horizons text January 2017
Discovery of a time lag between the soft X-ray and radio emission of the tidal disruption flare ASASSN-14li: Evidence for linear disk-jet coupling text January 2017
Streams collision as possible precursor of double tidal disruption events text January 2018
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The ASAS-SN Catalog of Variable Stars V: Variables in the Southern Hemisphere text January 2019
Optical follow-up of the tidal disruption event iPTF16fnl: new insights from X-shooter observations text January 2019
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Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
astronomy and astrophysics
accretion
accretion discs
black hole physics
galaxies
nuclei