Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Blagorodnova, N.
• Gezari, S.
• Hung, T.
• Kulkarni, S. R.
• Cenko, S. B.
• Pasham, D. R.
• Yan, L.
• Arcavi, I.
• Ben-Ami, S.
• Bue, B. D.
• Cantwell, T.
• Cao, Y.
• Castro-Tirado, A. J.
• Fender, R.
• Fremling, C.
• Gal-Yam, A.
• Ho, A. Y. Q.
• Horesh, A.
• Hosseinzadeh, G.
• Kasliwal, M. M.
• Kong, A. K. H.
• Laher, R. R.
• Leloudas, G.
• Lunnan, R.
• Masci, F. J.
• Mooley, K.
• Neill, J. D.
• Nugent, P.
• Powell, M.
• Valeev, A. F.
• Vreeswijk, P. M.
• Walters, R.
• Wozniak, P.

Titel

iPTF16fnl: A Faint and Fast Tidal Disruption Event in an E+A Galaxy

Ist Teil von

• The Astrophysical journal, 2017-07, Vol.844 (1), p.46

Ort / Verlag

Philadelphia: The American Astronomical Society

Erscheinungsjahr

2017

Quelle

EZB Free E-Journals

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• We present ground-based and Swift observations of iPTF16fnl, a likely tidal disruption event (TDE) discovered by the intermediate Palomar Transient Factory (iPTF) survey at 66.6 Mpc. The light curve of the object peaked at an absolute mag . The maximum bolometric luminosity (from optical and UV) was erg s−1, an order of magnitude fainter than any other optical TDE discovered so far. The luminosity in the first 60 days is consistent with an exponential decay, with , where t0 = 57631.0 (MJD) and days. The X-ray shows a marginal detection at erg s−1 (Swift X-ray Telescope). No radio counterpart was detected down to 3 , providing upper limits for monochromatic radio luminosities of erg s−1 and erg s−1 (Very Large Array, 6.1 and 22 GHz). The blackbody temperature, obtained from combined Swift UV and optical photometry, shows a constant value of 19,000 K. The transient spectrum at peak is characterized by broad He ii and H emission lines, with FWHMs of about 14,000 km s−1 and 10,000 km s−1, respectively. He i lines are also detected at λλ 5875 and 6678. The spectrum of the host is dominated by strong Balmer absorption lines, which are consistent with a post-starburst (E+A) galaxy with an age of ∼650 Myr and solar metallicity. The characteristics of iPTF16fnl make it an outlier on both luminosity and decay timescales, as compared to other optically selected TDEs. The discovery of such a faint optical event suggests a higher rate of tidal disruptions, as low-luminosity events may have gone unnoticed in previous searches.