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

Igor Andreoni^#^{1

2

3}, Michael W Coughlin^#⁴, Daniel A Perley⁵, Yuhan Yao⁶, Wenbin Lu⁷, S Bradley Cenko^{8

9}, Harsh Kumar¹⁰, Shreya Anand⁶, Anna Y Q Ho^{11

12

13}, Mansi M Kasliwal⁶, Antonio de Ugarte Postigo¹⁴, Ana Sagués-Carracedo¹⁵, Steve Schulze¹⁵, D Alexander Kann¹⁶, S R Kulkarni⁶, Jesper Sollerman¹⁷, Nial Tanvir¹⁸, Armin Rest^{19

20}, Luca Izzo²¹, Jean J Somalwar⁶, David L Kaplan²², Tomás Ahumada²³, G C Anupama²⁴, Katie Auchettl^{25

26

27}, Sudhanshu Barway²⁴, Eric C Bellm²⁸, Varun Bhalerao¹⁰, Joshua S Bloom^{11

12}, Michael Bremer²⁹, Mattia Bulla¹⁷, Eric Burns³⁰, Sergio Campana³¹, Poonam Chandra³², Panos Charalampopoulos³³, Jeff Cooke^{34

35}, Valerio D'Elia³⁶, Kaustav Kashyap Das⁶, Dougal Dobie^{34

35}, José Feliciano Agüí Fernández¹⁶, James Freeburn^{34

35}, Cristoffer Fremling⁶, Suvi Gezari¹⁹, Simon Goode^{34

35}, Matthew J Graham⁶, Erica Hammerstein²³, Viraj R Karambelkar⁶, Charles D Kilpatrick³⁷, Erik C Kool¹⁷, Melanie Krips²⁹, Russ R Laher³⁸, Giorgos Leloudas³³, Andrew Levan³⁹, Michael J Lundquist⁴⁰, Ashish A Mahabal^{6

41}, Michael S Medford^{11

12}, M Coleman Miller^{8

23}, Anais Möller^{34

35}, Kunal P Mooley⁶, A J Nayana⁴², Guy Nir¹¹, Peter T H Pang^{43

44}, Emmy Paraskeva^{45

46

47

48}, Richard A Perley⁴⁹, Glen Petitpas⁵⁰, Miika Pursiainen³³, Vikram Ravi⁶, Ryan Ridden-Harper⁵¹, Reed Riddle⁵², Mickael Rigault⁵³, Antonio C Rodriguez⁶, Ben Rusholme³⁸, Yashvi Sharma⁶, I A Smith⁵⁴, Robert D Stein⁶, Christina Thöne⁵⁵, Aaron Tohuvavohu⁵⁶, Frank Valdes⁵⁷, Jan van Roestel⁶, Susanna D Vergani^{58

59}, Qinan Wang¹⁹, Jielai Zhang^{34

35}

Affiliations

¹ Joint Space-Science Institute, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA. andreoni@umd.edu.
² Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA. andreoni@umd.edu.
³ Astrophysics Science Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA. andreoni@umd.edu.
⁴ School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA. cough052@umn.edu.
⁵ Astrophysics Research Institute, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK.
⁶ Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.
⁷ Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
⁸ Joint Space-Science Institute, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA.
⁹ Astrophysics Science Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA.
¹⁰ Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India.
¹¹ Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.
¹² Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA.
¹³ Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science, Berkeley, CA, USA.
¹⁴ Artemis, Université Côte d'Azur, Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, CNRS, Nice, France.
¹⁵ The Oskar Klein Centre, Department of Physics, Stockholm University, AlbaNova, Stockholm, Sweden.
¹⁶ Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, Granada, Spain.
¹⁷ The Oskar Klein Centre, Department of Astronomy, Stockholm University, AlbaNova, Stockholm, Sweden.
¹⁸ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK.
¹⁹ Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA.
²⁰ Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
²¹ DARK, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
²² Center for Gravitation, Cosmology and Astrophysics, Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, USA.
²³ Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA.
²⁴ Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore, India.
²⁵ School of Physics, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
²⁶ ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), Sydney, Australia.
²⁷ Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA.
²⁸ DIRAC Institute, Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
²⁹ Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique (IRAM), Saint Martin d'Hères, France.
³⁰ Department of Physics & Astronomy, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA.
³¹ INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, Merate, Italy.
³² National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Pune, India.
³³ DTU Space, National Space Institute, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark.
³⁴ Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav), Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia.
³⁵ Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia.
³⁶ Space Science Data Center - Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, Rome, Italy.
³⁷ Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA), Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.
³⁸ IPAC, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.
³⁹ Department of Astrophysics, Radboud University, Nĳmegen, The Netherlands.
⁴⁰ W. M. Keck Observatory, Kamuela, HI, USA.
⁴¹ Center for Data-Driven Discovery, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.
⁴² Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru, India.
⁴³ Nikhef, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
⁴⁴ Institute for Gravitational and Subatomic Physics (GRASP), Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
⁴⁵ IAASARS, National Observatory of Athens, Penteli, Greece.
⁴⁶ Department of Astrophysics, Astronomy and Mechanics, Faculty of Physics, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece.
⁴⁷ Nordic Optical Telescope, Breña Baja, Spain.
⁴⁸ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
⁴⁹ National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Socorro, NM, USA.
⁵⁰ Center for Astrophysics - Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁵¹ School of Physical and Chemical Sciences ∣ Te Kura Matū, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.
⁵² Caltech Optical Observatories, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.
⁵³ Université Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, CNRS, IP2I Lyon / IN2P3, IMR 5822, Villeurbanne, France.
⁵⁴ Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawai'i, Pukalani, HI, USA.
⁵⁵ Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences (ASU-CAS), Ondřejov, Czech Republic.
⁵⁶ Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
⁵⁷ National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, Tucson, AZ, USA.
⁵⁸ GEPI, Observatoire de Paris, PSL University, CNRS, Meudon, France.
⁵⁹ Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, CNRS-UPMC, UMR7095, Paris, France.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 36450988
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05465-8

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

Igor Andreoni et al. Nature. 2022 Dec.

. 2022 Dec;612(7940):430-434.

doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-05465-8. Epub 2022 Nov 30.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Joint Space-Science Institute, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA. andreoni@umd.edu.
² Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA. andreoni@umd.edu.
³ Astrophysics Science Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA. andreoni@umd.edu.
⁴ School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA. cough052@umn.edu.
⁵ Astrophysics Research Institute, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK.
⁶ Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.
⁷ Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
⁸ Joint Space-Science Institute, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA.
⁹ Astrophysics Science Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA.
¹⁰ Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India.
¹¹ Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.
¹² Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA.
¹³ Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science, Berkeley, CA, USA.
¹⁴ Artemis, Université Côte d'Azur, Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, CNRS, Nice, France.
¹⁵ The Oskar Klein Centre, Department of Physics, Stockholm University, AlbaNova, Stockholm, Sweden.
¹⁶ Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, Granada, Spain.
¹⁷ The Oskar Klein Centre, Department of Astronomy, Stockholm University, AlbaNova, Stockholm, Sweden.
¹⁸ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK.
¹⁹ Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA.
²⁰ Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
²¹ DARK, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
²² Center for Gravitation, Cosmology and Astrophysics, Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, USA.
²³ Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA.
²⁴ Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore, India.
²⁵ School of Physics, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
²⁶ ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), Sydney, Australia.
²⁷ Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA.
²⁸ DIRAC Institute, Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
²⁹ Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique (IRAM), Saint Martin d'Hères, France.
³⁰ Department of Physics & Astronomy, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA.
³¹ INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, Merate, Italy.
³² National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Pune, India.
³³ DTU Space, National Space Institute, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark.
³⁴ Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav), Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia.
³⁵ Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia.
³⁶ Space Science Data Center - Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, Rome, Italy.
³⁷ Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA), Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.
³⁸ IPAC, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.
³⁹ Department of Astrophysics, Radboud University, Nĳmegen, The Netherlands.
⁴⁰ W. M. Keck Observatory, Kamuela, HI, USA.
⁴¹ Center for Data-Driven Discovery, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.
⁴² Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru, India.
⁴³ Nikhef, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
⁴⁴ Institute for Gravitational and Subatomic Physics (GRASP), Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
⁴⁵ IAASARS, National Observatory of Athens, Penteli, Greece.
⁴⁶ Department of Astrophysics, Astronomy and Mechanics, Faculty of Physics, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece.
⁴⁷ Nordic Optical Telescope, Breña Baja, Spain.
⁴⁸ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
⁴⁹ National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Socorro, NM, USA.
⁵⁰ Center for Astrophysics - Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁵¹ School of Physical and Chemical Sciences ∣ Te Kura Matū, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.
⁵² Caltech Optical Observatories, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.
⁵³ Université Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, CNRS, IP2I Lyon / IN2P3, IMR 5822, Villeurbanne, France.
⁵⁴ Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawai'i, Pukalani, HI, USA.
⁵⁵ Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences (ASU-CAS), Ondřejov, Czech Republic.
⁵⁶ Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
⁵⁷ National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, Tucson, AZ, USA.
⁵⁸ GEPI, Observatoire de Paris, PSL University, CNRS, Meudon, France.
⁵⁹ Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, CNRS-UPMC, UMR7095, Paris, France.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 36450988
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05465-8

Erratum in

Publisher Correction: A very luminous jet from the disruption of a star by a massive black hole.
Andreoni I, Coughlin MW, Perley DA, Yao Y, Lu W, Cenko SB, Kumar H, Anand S, Ho AYQ, Kasliwal MM, de Ugarte Postigo A, Sagués-Carracedo A, Schulze S, Kann DA, Kulkarni SR, Sollerman J, Tanvir N, Rest A, Izzo L, Somalwar JJ, Kaplan DL, Ahumada T, Anupama GC, Auchettl K, Barway S, Bellm EC, Bhalerao V, Bloom JS, Bremer M, Bulla M, Burns E, Campana S, Chandra P, Charalampopoulos P, Cooke J, D'Elia V, Das KK, Dobie D, Fernández JFA, Freeburn J, Fremling C, Gezari S, Goode S, Graham MJ, Hammerstein E, Karambelkar VR, Kilpatrick CD, Kool EC, Krips M, Laher RR, Leloudas G, Levan A, Lundquist MJ, Mahabal AA, Medford MS, Miller MC, Möller A, Mooley KP, Nayana AJ, Nir G, Pang PTH, Paraskeva E, Perley RA, Petitpas G, Pursiainen M, Ravi V, Ridden-Harper R, Riddle R, Rigault M, Rodriguez AC, Rusholme B, Sharma Y, Smith IA, Stein RD, Thöne C, Tohuvavohu A, Valdes F, van Roestel J, Vergani SD, Wang Q, Zhang J. Andreoni I, et al. Nature. 2023 Jan;613(7945):E6. doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-05699-0. Nature. 2023. PMID: 36624296 No abstract available.

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 jet^2-9, 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.

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References

1. Rees, M. J. Tidal disruption of stars by black holes of 10⁶–10⁸ solar masses in nearby galaxies. Nature 333, 523–528 (1988). - DOI
1. Bloom, J. S. et al. A possible relativistic jetted outburst from a massive black hole fed by a tidally disrupted star. Science 333, 203–206 (2011). - DOI
1. Burrows, D. N. et al. Relativistic jet activity from the tidal disruption of a star by a massive black hole. Nature 476, 421–424 (2011). - DOI
1. Levan, A. J. et al. An extremely luminous panchromatic outburst from the nucleus of a distant galaxy. Science 333, 199–202 (2011). - DOI
1. Zauderer, B. A. et al. Birth of a relativistic outflow in the unusual γ-ray transient Swift J164449.3+573451. Nature 476, 425–428 (2011). - DOI

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

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

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