A tidal disruption event in a nearby galaxy hosting an intermediate mass black hole

Journal Article · Sat Feb 01 00:00:00 EST 2014 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/781/2/59· OSTI ID:22348142

Donato, D.; Troja, E. ^[1]; Cenko, S. B.; Fox, O. ^[2]; Covino, S. ^[3]; Pursimo, T. ^[4]; Cheung, C. C. ^[5]; Kutyrev, A. ^[6]; Campana, S.; Fugazza, D. ^[7]; Landt, H. ^[8]

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1. CRESST and Astroparticle Physics Laboratory NASA/GSFC, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States)
2. Astrophysics Science Division, NASA/GSFC, Mail Code 661, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States)
3. INAF, Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, via E. Bianchi 46, I-23807 Merate (Italy)
4. Nordic Optical Telescope, Apartado 474, E-38700 Santa Cruz de La Palma (Spain)
5. Space Science Division, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375-5352 (United States)
6. Observational Cosmology Laboratory, NASA/GSFC, 8800 Greenbelt Road, Greenbelt, MD 20771-2400 (United States)
7. Joint Space Science Institute, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 (United States)
8. Department of Physics, Durham University, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE (United Kingdom)

We report the serendipitous discovery of a bright point source flare in the Abell cluster A1795 with archival EUVE and Chandra observations. Assuming the EUVE emission is associated with the Chandra source, the X-ray 0.5-7 keV flux declined by a factor of ∼2300 over a time span of 6 yr, following a power-law decay with index ∼2.44 ± 0.40. The Chandra data alone vary by a factor of ∼20. The spectrum is well fit by a blackbody with a constant temperature of kT ∼ 0.09 keV (∼10{sup 6} K). The flare is spatially coincident with the nuclear region of a faint, inactive galaxy with a photometric redshift consistent at the 1σ level with the cluster (z = 0.062476). We argue that these properties are indicative of a tidal disruption of a star by a black hole (BH) with log (M {sub BH}/M {sub ☉}) ∼ 5.5 ± 0.5. If so, such a discovery indicates that tidal disruption flares may be used to probe BHs in the intermediate mass range, which are very difficult to study by other means.

• OSTI ID: 22348142
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 781, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
BLACK HOLES
DECAY
EMISSION
GALAXY CLUSTERS
GALAXY NUCLEI
KEV RANGE
MASS
POINT SOURCES
RED SHIFT
SPECTRA
STARS
X RADIATION
X-RAY GALAXIES