English

The Unusual Late-Time Evolution of the Tidal Disruption Event ASASSN-15oi

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2019-10-14 v2

Abstract

We present late-time optical spectroscopy and X-ray, UV, and optical photometry of the nearby (d=214d=214 Mpc, z=0.0479z=0.0479) tidal disruption event (TDE) ASASSN-15oi. The optical spectra span 450 days after discovery and show little remaining transient emission or evolution after roughly 3 months. In contrast, the Swift and XMM-Newton observations indicate the presence of evolving X-ray emission and lingering thermal UV emission that is still present 600 days after discovery. The thermal component of the X-ray emission shows a unique, slow brightening by roughly an order of magnitude to become the dominant source of emission from the TDE at later times, while the hard component of the X-ray emission remains weak and relatively constant throughout the flare. The TDE radiated (1.32±0.06)×1051(1.32\pm0.06)\times10^{51} ergs across all wavelengths, and the UV and optical emission is consistent with a power law decline and potentially indicative of a late-time shift in the power-law index that could be caused by a transition in the dominant emission mechanism.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1804.00006,
  title  = {The Unusual Late-Time Evolution of the Tidal Disruption Event ASASSN-15oi},
  author = {T. W. -S. Holoien and J. S. Brown and K. Auchettl and C. S. Kochanek and J. L. Prieto and B. J. Shappee and J. Van Saders},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1804.00006},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

16 pages, 9 figures, 4 tables. Updated to reflect changes made in the published version