A very luminous jet from the disruption of a star by a massive black hole.

Journal: Nature
Published:
Abstract

Tidal disruption events (TDEs) are bursts of electromagnetic energy that are released when supermassive black holes at the centres of galaxies violently disrupt a star that passes too close1. TDEs provide a window through which to study accretion onto supermassive black holes; in some rare cases, this accretion leads to launching of a relativistic jet2-9, but the necessary conditions are not fully understood. The best-studied jetted TDE so far is Swift J1644+57, which was discovered in γ-rays, but was too obscured by dust to be seen at optical wavelengths. Here we report the optical detection of AT2022cmc, a rapidly fading source at cosmological distance (redshift z = 1.19325) the unique light curve of which transitioned into a luminous plateau within days. Observations of a bright counterpart at other wavelengths, including X-ray, submillimetre and radio, supports the interpretation of AT2022cmc as a jetted TDE containing a synchrotron 'afterglow', probably launched by a supermassive black hole with spin greater than approximately 0.3. Using four years of Zwicky Transient Facility10 survey data, we calculate a rate of [Formula: see text] per gigapascals cubed per year for on-axis jetted TDEs on the basis of the luminous, fast-fading red component, thus providing a measurement complementary to the rates derived from X-ray and radio observations11. Correcting for the beaming angle effects, this rate confirms that approximately 1 per cent of TDEs have relativistic jets. Optical surveys can use AT2022cmc as a prototype to unveil a population of jetted TDEs.

Authors
Igor Andreoni, Michael Coughlin, Daniel Perley, Yuhan Yao, Wenbin Lu, S Cenko, Harsh Kumar, Shreya Anand, Anna Y Ho, Mansi Kasliwal, Antonio De Ugarte Postigo, Ana Sagués Carracedo, Steve Schulze, D Kann, S Kulkarni, Jesper Sollerman, Nial Tanvir, Armin Rest, Luca Izzo, Jean Somalwar, David Kaplan, Tomás Ahumada, G Anupama, Katie Auchettl, Sudhanshu Barway, Eric Bellm, Varun Bhalerao, Joshua Bloom, Michael Bremer, Mattia Bulla, Eric Burns, Sergio Campana, Poonam Chandra, Panos Charalampopoulos, Jeff Cooke, Valerio D'elia, Kaustav Das, Dougal Dobie, José Feliciano Fernández, James Freeburn, Cristoffer Fremling, Suvi Gezari, Simon Goode, Matthew Graham, Erica Hammerstein, Viraj Karambelkar, Charles Kilpatrick, Erik Kool, Melanie Krips, Russ Laher, Giorgos Leloudas, Andrew Levan, Michael Lundquist, Ashish Mahabal, Michael Medford, M Miller, Anais Möller, Kunal Mooley, A Nayana, Guy Nir, Peter T Pang, Emmy Paraskeva, Richard Perley, Glen Petitpas, Miika Pursiainen, Vikram Ravi, Ryan Ridden Harper, Reed Riddle, Mickael Rigault, Antonio Rodriguez, Ben Rusholme, Yashvi Sharma, I Smith, Robert Stein, Christina Thöne, Aaron Tohuvavohu, Frank Valdes, Jan Van Roestel, Susanna Vergani, Qinan Wang, Jielai Zhang