Revealing the nature of extreme coronal-line emitter SDSS J095209.56+214313.3
[5];
- Observatoire astronomique de l'Universite de Geneve, Sauverny (Switzerland)
- Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States). Dept. of Astronomy
- Max Planck Inst. for Astronomy, Heidelberg (Germany)
- Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States). Lincoln Lab.
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States). Dept. of Astronomy
Extreme coronal-line emitter (ECLE) SDSS J095209.56+214313.3, known by its strong, fading, high-ionization lines, has been a long-standing candidate for a tidal disruption event; however, a supernova (SN) origin has not yet been ruled out. Here we add several new pieces of information to the puzzle of the nature of the transient that powered its variable coronal lines: (1) an optical light curve from the Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) survey that serendipitously catches the optical flare, and (2) late-time observations of the host galaxy with the Swift Ultraviolet and Optical Telescope (UVOT) and X-ray telescope (XRT) and the ground-based Mercator telescope. The well-sampled, ~10 yr long, unfiltered LINEAR light curve constrains the onset of the flare to a precision of ±5 days and enables us to place a lower limit on the peak optical magnitude. Difference imaging allows us to estimate the location of the flare in proximity of the host galaxy core. Comparison of the GALEX data (early 2006) with the recently acquired Swift UVOT (2015 June) and Mercator observations (2015 April) demonstrates a decrease in the UV flux over a ~10 yr period, confirming that the flare was UV-bright. The long-lived UV-bright emission, detected 1.8 rest-frame years after the start of the flare, strongly disfavors an SN origin. In conclusion, these new data allow us to conclude that the flare was indeed powered by the tidal disruption of a star by a supermassive black hole and that tidal disruption events are in fact capable of powering the enigmatic class of ECLEs.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program; European Union (EU); National Science Foundation (NSF); National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC52-06NA25396; NNX15AR46G; FA8721-05-C-0002; 227224; NNG05GF22G; AST-0909182
- OSTI ID:
- 1412868
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-17-27742; TRN: US1800383
- Journal Information:
- The Astrophysical Journal (Online), Vol. 819, Issue 2; ISSN 1538-4357
- Publisher:
- Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Web of Science
Dawes Review 6: The Impact of Companions on Stellar Evolution
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journal | January 2017 |
New Physical Insights about Tidal Disruption Events from a Comprehensive Observational Inventory at X-Ray Wavelengths
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journal | April 2017 |
A New Class of Changing-look LINERs
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journal | September 2019 |
Dawes Review 6: The Impact of Companions on Stellar Evolution
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journalarticle | January 2017 |
| New physical insights about Tidal Disruption Events from a comprehensive observational inventory at X-ray wavelengths | text | January 2016 |
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