SWIFT J2058.4+0516: DISCOVERY OF A POSSIBLE SECOND RELATIVISTIC TIDAL DISRUPTION FLARE?
- Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3411 (United States)
- CRESST and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States)
- Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States)
- Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Giessenbachstrasse 1, Garching 85748 (Germany)
- National Radio Astronomy Observatory, P.O. Box 0, Socorro, NM 87801 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, 525 Davey Laboratory, University Park, PA 16802 (United States)
- Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL (United Kingdom)
- Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States)
- Department of Particle Physics and Astrophysics, Faculty of Physics, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100 (Israel)
We report the discovery by the Swift hard X-ray monitor of the transient source Swift J2058.4+0516 (Sw J2058+05). Our multi-wavelength follow-up campaign uncovered a long-lived (duration {approx}> months), luminous X-ray (L{sub X,iso} Almost-Equal-To 3 Multiplication-Sign 10{sup 47} erg s{sup -1}) and radio ({nu}L{sub {nu},iso} Almost-Equal-To 10{sup 42} erg s{sup -1}) counterpart. The associated optical emission, however, from which we measure a redshift of 1.1853, is relatively faint, and this is not due to a large amount of dust extinction in the host galaxy. Based on numerous similarities with the recently discovered GRB 110328A/Swift J164449.3+573451 (Sw J1644+57), we suggest that Sw J2058+05 may be the second member of a new class of relativistic outbursts resulting from the tidal disruption of a star by a supermassive black hole. If so, the relative rarity of these sources (compared with the expected rate of tidal disruptions) implies that either these outflows are extremely narrowly collimated ({theta} < 1 Degree-Sign ) or only a small fraction of tidal disruptions generate relativistic ejecta. Analogous to the case of long-duration gamma-ray bursts and core-collapse supernovae, we speculate that rapid spin of the black hole may be a necessary condition to generate the relativistic component. Alternatively, if powered by gas accretion (i.e., an active galactic nucleus (AGN)), Sw J2058+05 would seem to represent a new mode of variability in these sources, as the observed properties appear largely inconsistent with known classes of AGNs capable of generating relativistic jets (blazars, narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies).
- OSTI ID:
- 22036896
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 753, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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