RBS 1032 is a supersoft (Γ∼5), luminous (∼1043 erg/s) ROSAT PSPC source which has been associated with an inactive dwarf galaxy at z=0.026, SDSS J114726.69+494257.8. We have analyzed an XMM-Newton observation which confirms that RBS 1032 is indeed associated with the dwarf galaxy. Moreover, RBS 1032 has undergone a factor of ∼100−300 decay since November 1990. This variability suggests that RBS 1032 may not be a steadily accreting intermediate-mass black hole, but rather an accretion flare from the tidal disruption of a star by the central black hole (which may or may not be intermediate-mass). We suggest that additional tidal disruption events may remain unidentified in archival ROSAT data, such that disruption rate estimates based upon ROSAT All-Sky Survey data may need reconsideration.
@article{arxiv.1407.2928,
title = {RBS 1032: A Tidal Disruption Event in Another Dwarf Galaxy?},
author = {W. Peter Maksym and Dacheng Lin and Jimmy Irwin},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1407.2928},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
Accepted to ApJ Letters, 5 August 2014. Revised and refereed version