Tidal Disruption Events Andrew Levan University of Warwick rT = R* (MCO / M*)1/3 Bound, falls back Unbound, escapes.

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Transcript Tidal Disruption Events Andrew Levan University of Warwick rT = R* (MCO / M*)1/3 Bound, falls back Unbound, escapes.

Tidal Disruption
Events
Andrew Levan
University of Warwick
rT = R* (MCO / M*)1/3
Bound, falls back
Unbound,
escapes
rT = R* (MCO / M*)1/3
Bound, falls back
Unbound,
escapes
WD, NS, BH
rT = R* (MCO / M*)1/3
Bound, falls back
Unbound,
escapes
Asteroid, planet,
star (MS, WD,
RG, NS)
WD, NS, BH
rT = R* (MBH / M*)1/3
Rs ~ 2 GM / c2
rT = R* (MBH / M*)1/3
tmin ~ R*3/2 MBH1/2
Duration of event:
WD = hours
MS = months - years
RG = decades - centuries
Tidal disruption events – around massive
black holes
 Probe of the existence of massive BHs in faint galaxies, even
globular clusters?
 Timescales much more rapid than in AGN to probe accretion
physics
 Contribution to the AGN LF
 Reverberation mapping of circumnuclear material
 Signposts of gravitational wave sources
 Signatures of merging BHs (disruption rates 1 per decade)
 Possible accelerators of ultra-high energy cosmic rays
Finding TDEs
 Nuclear X-ray and/or optical flares
 Hot blackbody components (UV, soft X-ray spectrum)
 Characteristic decay t-5/3
 Rates 10-4-5 /yr/L* galaxy (0.1-1% of core collapse SNe rate)
Except……
 Nuclear AGN and multiple variable X-ray sources.
 Often relatively poor X-ray cadence (don’t realise until it is late)
 X-ray’s often give poor positions compared to optical/radio
 Nuclear supernovae more common than TDEs
 Some UV bright at early times, extinction always a concern.
 Nuclei are bright, and often excluded from optical transient
searches due to difficulties in subtractions
 Contributions from disc, wind etc complicate the lightcurve.
Early work(X-ray’s)
Halpern, Gezari & Komossa 2004 ApJ 604 572
Komossa & Bade 1999 A&A 343 775
Recent work(X-ray’s)
Saxton et al. 2012 A&A 541 106
Recent work
(optical)
Wavelength (A)
Gezari et al. 2012 Nature 485 217
Recent work
(optical)
Opt
UV
ASASSN-14ae (200 Mpc)
HST (13 June 2014)
Holoein et al. 2014 arXiv:1405.1417
Why not both?
PS1-10jh
NUV
X-ray
Just disc/wind temperature?
Different components at different times?
Lodato & Rossi 2011 MNRAS 410 359
SGRB
LGRB
ULGRB TDE?
SGR
Galactic Sources
Levan et al. 2014 ApJ 781 13
Swift J1644+57
Levan et al. 2011 Science 333 199
Levan et al. 2011 Science 333 199, Bloom et al. 2011 Science 333 202
Levan et al. 2011, Cenko et al. 2012, Brown et al. in prep
In context
Levan et al. 2011, Cenko et al. 2012
Host Galaxies
Levan et al. 2011 Science 333 199
All 3 events consistent with nuclei
of their hosts
Bloom et al 2011 Science 333 202
Relativistic outflow
Swift J1644+57
Zauderer et al. 2011 Nature 476 425
Switch-off
Swift J1644+57
Switch-off
Swift J2058+0516
Implications
 Host galaxies with
MB <-18 have
massive black holes
in their cores
A unique probe of galactic
nuclei
Miller & Gultekin 2011 ApJ 738 13; Berger et al. 2012 arXiv 1112.1697
Jets are rare
 3 relativistic TDEs at z=0.35, 0.89, 1.19
 All well detected by Swift
 No other compelling candidates in BAT archive
 Jetted TDE rate ~10-6 “classical TDEs”
 Jet angles much larger than this
 Requirements for jet creation unclear
UV/optical
X-ray
Relativistic
PTF10iya
PS1-10jh
D23H-1
D3-13
D1-9
PS1-11af
ASASSN-14ae
PTF09ge
PTF09axc
PTF09djl
NGC5905
RXJ1242-1119
RXJ1420+5334
NGC3599
SDSSJ1323+4827
TDXFJ1347-3254
SDSSJ1311-0123
2MMMi J1847-6317
SDSSJ1201+3003
Swift J1644+57
Swift J2058+0516
Swift J1112-8238
Ultra-long GRBs?
Are these all TDEs? Why are they so diverse?
A naming convention ala SNe is urgently needed (NT-X 2014A?)
Summary and next steps
 TDEs are exceptionally useful astrophysical probes
 But: Candidates to date are extremely diverse.
 X-ray detected events have poor optical follow-up
 Many optically detected events don’t have detectable X-ray’s
 Jetted events appear to be extremely rare
 We still need to understand the physical mechanisms at play to
cleanly identify TDEs from other transients, and deploy them as
probes.
 Multiwavelength follow-up in close to real time is essential
 Rule out SNe
 Tie events to SMBH as tightly as possible
 Map emission processes