Welcome to the new version of CaltechAUTHORS. Login is currently restricted to library staff. If you notice any issues, please email coda@library.caltech.edu
Published February 2009 | Published
Journal Article Open

A candidate tidal disruption event in the Galaxy cluster Abell 3571

Abstract

Context. Tidal disruption events are possible sources of temporary nuclear activity in galactic nuclei and can be considered as good indicators of the existence of supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies. Aims. A new X-ray source has been detected serendipitously with ROSAT in a PSPC pointed observation of the galaxy cluster A3571. Given the strong flux decay of the object in subsequent detections, the tidal disruption scenario is investigated as a possible explanation of the event. Methods. We followed the evolution of the X-ray transient with ROSAT, XMM-Newton and Chandra for a total period of ∼13 years. We also obtained 7-band optical/NIR photometry with GROND at the ESO/MPI 2.2 m telescope. Results. We report a very large decay of the X-ray flux of the ROSAT source identified with the galaxy LEDA 095953, a member of the cluster Abell 3571. We measured a maximum 0.3−2.4 keV luminosity Log (L_X) = 42.8 erg s^−1. The high state of the source lasted at least 150 ks; afterwards L_X declined as ~t^(−2). The spectrum of the brightest epoch is consistent with a black body with temperature kT ~ 0.12 keV. Conclusions. The total energy released by this event in 10 yr was estimated to be Δ E > 2 × 10^(50) erg.We interpret this event as a tidal disruption of a solar type star by the central supermassive black hole (i.e. ~10^7 M⊙) of the galaxy.

Additional Information

© ESO 2009. Received 5 December 2008 / Accepted 18 January 2009. The XMM-Newton, Chandra and ROSAT archival systems and the full GROND team are acknowledged. P.R. is supported by the Pappalardo fellowship at MIT. H. Q. thanks partial support from the FONDAP Centro de Astrofisica.

Attached Files

Published - Cappelluti2009p66510.10510004-6361200811479.pdf

Files

Cappelluti2009p66510.10510004-6361200811479.pdf
Files (192.7 kB)
Name Size Download all
md5:107d4be0981ac83dbc229475caea5b03
192.7 kB Preview Download

Additional details

Created:
August 21, 2023
Modified:
October 18, 2023