A very luminous jet from the disruption of a star by a massive black hole
Creators: name: Andreoni, Igor
name: Coughlin, Michael W.
name: Perley, Daniel A.
name: Yao, Yuhan
name: Lu, Wenbin
name: Cenko, S. Bradley
name: Kumar, Harsh
name: Anand, Shreya
name: Ho, Anna Y. Q.
name: Kasliwal, Mansi M.
name: Postigo, Antonio de Ugarte
name: Sagues-Carracedo, Ana
name: Schulze, Steve
name: Kann, D. Alexander
name: Kulkarni, S. R.
name: Sollerman, Jesper
name: Tanvir, Nial
name: Rest, Armin
name: Izzo, Luca
name: Somalwar, Jean J.
name: Kaplan, David L.
name: Ahumada, Tomas
name: Anupama, G. C.
name: Auchettl, Katie
name: Barway, Sudhanshu
name: Bellm, Eric C.
name: Bhalerao, Varun
name: Bloom, Joshua S.
name: Bremer, Michael
name: Bulla, Mattia
name: Burns, Eric
name: Campana, Sergio
name: Chandra, Poonam
name: Charalampopoulos, Panos
name: Cooke, Jeff
name: D'Elia, Valerio
name: Das, Kaustav Kashyap
name: Dobie, Dougal
name: Fernández, José Feliciano Agüí
name: Freeburn, James
name: Fremling, Cristoffer
name: Gezari, Suvi
name: Goode, Simon
name: Graham, Matthew
name: Hammerstein, Erica
name: Karambelkar, Viraj R.
name: Kilpatrick, Charles D.
name: Kool, Erik C.
name: Krips, Melanie
name: Laher, Russ R.
name: Leloudas, Giorgos
name: Levan, Andrew
name: Lundquist, Michael J.
name: Mahabal, Ashish A.
name: Medford, Michael S.
name: Miller, M. Coleman
name: Möller, Anais
name: Mooley, Kunal
name: Nayana, A. J.
name: Nir, Guy
name: Pang, Peter T. H.
name: Paraskeva, Emmy
name: Perley, Richard A.
name: Petitpas, Glen
name: Pursiainen, Miika
name: Ravi, Vikram
name: Ridden-Harper, Ryan
name: Riddle, Reed
name: Rigault, Mickael
name: Rodriguez, Antonio C.
name: Rusholme, Ben
name: Sharma, Yashvi
name: Smith, I. A.
name: Stein, Robert D.
name: Thöne, Christina
name: Tohuvavohu, Aaron
name: Valdes, Frank
name: van Roestel, Jan
name: Vergani, Susanna D.
name: Wang, Qinan
name: Zhang, Jielai
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Tidal disruption events (TDEs) are bursts of electromagnetic energy released when supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at the centers of galaxies violently disrupt a star that passes too close. TDEs provide a new window to study accretion onto SMBHs; in some rare cases, this accretion leads to launching of a relativistic jet, but the necessary conditions are not fully understood. The best studied jetted TDE to date is Swift J1644+57, which was discovered in gamma-rays, but was too obscured by dust to be seen at optical wavelengths. Here we report the optical discovery of AT2022cmc, a rapidly fading source at cosmological distance (redshift z=1.19325) whose unique lightcurve transitioned into a luminous plateau within days. Observations of a bright counterpart at other wavelengths, including X-rays, sub-millimeter, and radio, supports the interpretation of AT2022cmc as a jetted TDE containing a synchrotron "afterglow", likely launched by a SMBH with spin $a \gtrsim 0.3$. Using 4 years of Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) survey data, we calculate a rate of $0.02 ^{+ 0.04 }_{- 0.01 }$ Gpc$^{-3}$ yr$^{-1}$ for on-axis jetted TDEs based on the luminous, fast-fading red component, thus providing a measurement complementary to the rates derived from X-ray and radio observations. Correcting for the beaming angle effects, this rate confirms that about 1% of TDEs have relativistic jets. Optical surveys can use AT2022cmc as a prototype to unveil a population of jetted TDEs.
description: Accepted for publication in Nature