Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Sep 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011head...12.3520l&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, HEAD meeting #12, #35.20
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
Stars approaching a supermassive black hole (SMBH) can be tidally disrupted and subsequently accreted, providing a unique way to find and study inactive SMBHs. We report on our discovery of a new tidal disruption event candidate, 2XMMi J184725.1-631724, with unprecedented X-ray spectra near the flare peak. It lies toward the center of an inactive galaxy at z=0.0353. It was detected serendipitously in two XMM-Newton observations separated by 211 days, with the 0.2-10 keV absorbed flux increasing by a factor of about 9. Their X-ray spectra are dominated by a strong cool thermal disk (>80%, tens of eV) with the luminosity appearing to follow the L ∝ T4 relation, often seen in the thermal state of the BH X-ray binaries. The spectral fits imply a black-hole mass of 106 solar mass. Both XMM-Newton observations show variability of about 21% on timescales of hours, which can be explained as due to fast variations in the mass accretion rate. The source was not detected by ROSAT in an observation in 1992, indicating a variability factor of >64 over longer timescales. The source was not detected again in X-rays in a Swift observation in 2011 February, implying a flux decrease by a factor of >12 since the last XMM-Newton observation.
Barret Dider
Carrasco Eleazar R.
Farrell Sean A.
Grupe Dirk
Lin Dacheng
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