English

Probing the tidal disruption event iPTF16axa with CLOUDY and disc-wind models

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2022-12-07 v1

Abstract

We present both a disc-wind model on the optical/UV emission continuum and CLOUDY modelling on the spectral lines of the tidal disruption event (TDE) iPTF16axa to understand the disc-wind emission and the properties of the atmosphere that impacts the line luminosity of the TDE. Assuming the optical/UV emission from the wind due to the disc super-Eddington phase, we use the steady structured disc-wind model with a spherical wind with constant velocity to fit the observations on multiple days. The extracted parameters are stellar-mass M=6.20±1.19MM_{\star} = 6.20 \pm 1.19 M_{\odot}, disc radiative efficiency log10(η)=1.22±1.327\log_{\rm 10}(\eta) = -1.22 \pm 1.327, wind inner radius rl=(2.013±0.551)×1014 cmr_l = (2.013 \pm 0.551) \times 10^{14}~{\rm cm} and velocity vw=18999.4±1785.1 km s1v_w = 18999.4 \pm 1785.1 ~{\rm km~s^{-1}}. The photosphere temperature for wind emission is 2×104 K \sim 2 \times 10^4~{\rm K} and the disc single blackbody temperature is 0.995×105 K\sim 0.995 \times 10^5~{\rm K}. We also perform CLOUDY modelling to explain the observed He and H line luminosities that estimate a wind inner radius rl=7.07×1014 cmr_l = 7.07 \times 10^{14}~{\rm cm} and velocity vw=1.3×104 km s1v_w = 1.3 \times 10^4~{\rm km~s^{-1}}. The independent analyses of iPTF16axa using CLOUDY and disc-wind models show comparable results that agree with observations. The CLOUDY modelling finds that both the super solar abundance of He and a smaller He II line optical depth is responsible for the enhancement of He II line luminosity over the Hα\alpha line luminosity. The super-solar abundance of He II agrees with a relatively large stellar mass and suggests that the disrupted star might have been a red giant.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2211.14458,
  title  = {Probing the tidal disruption event iPTF16axa with CLOUDY and disc-wind models},
  author = {T. Mageshwaran and Gargi Shaw and Sudip Bhattacharyya},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2211.14458},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

12 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

R2 v1 2026-06-28T07:13:23.438Z