Journal
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL
Volume 741, Issue 2, Pages -Publisher
IOP PUBLISHING LTD
DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/741/2/73
Keywords
black hole physics; galaxies: nuclei
Categories
Funding
- Huygens Scholarship Programme
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- National Science Foundation
- U.S. Department of Energy
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Japanese Monbukagakusho
- Max Planck Society
- Higher Education Funding Council for England
- American Museum of Natural History
- Astrophysical Institute
- University of Basel
- University of Cambridge
- Case Western Reserve University
- University of Chicago
- Drexel University
- Fermilab
- Institute for Advanced Study
- Japan Participation Group
- Johns Hopkins University
- Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics
- Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology
- Korean Scientist Group
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (LAMOST)
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
- Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy (MPIA)
- Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics (MPA)
- New Mexico State University
- Ohio State University
- University of Pittsburgh
- University of Portsmouth
- Princeton University
- United States Naval Observatory
- University of Washington
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration through the Science Mission Directorate [NNG05GF22G]
- NSF [AST-0707982]
- U.S. National Science Foundation [AST-0909182]
- Associated Universities, Inc.
- [NSF-PHY-0701451]
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien
- Division Of Astronomical Sciences [909182] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Division Of Physics
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien [0970075, 0900631] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Using archival Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) multi-epoch imaging data (Stripe 82), we have searched for the tidal disruption of stars by supermassive black holes in non-active galaxies. Two candidate tidal disruption events (TDEs) are identified. The TDE flares have optical blackbody temperatures of 2 x 10(4) K and observed peak luminosities of M-g = -18.3 and -20.4 (nu L-nu = 5 x 10(42), 4 x 10(43) erg s(-1), in the rest frame); their cooling rates are very low, qualitatively consistent with expectations for tidal disruption flares. The properties of the TDE candidates are examined using (1) SDSS imaging to compare them to other flares observed in the search, (2) UV emission measured by GALEX, and (3) spectra of the hosts and of one of the flares. Our pipeline excludes optically identifiable AGN hosts, and our variability monitoring over nine years provides strong evidence that these are not flares in hidden AGNs. The spectra and color evolution of the flares are unlike any SN observed to date, their strong late-time UV emission is particularly distinctive, and they are nuclear at high resolution arguing against these being first cases of a previously unobserved class of SNe or more extreme examples of known SN types. Taken together, the observed properties are difficult to reconcile with an SN or an AGN-flare explanation, although an entirely new process specific to the inner few hundred parsecs of non-active galaxies cannot be excluded. Based on our observed rate, we infer that hundreds or thousands of TDEs will be present in current and next-generation optical synoptic surveys. Using the approach outlined here, a TDE candidate sample with O(1) purity can be selected using geometric resolution and host and flare color alone, demonstrating that a campaign to create a large sample of TDEs, with immediate and detailed multi-wavelength follow-up, is feasible. A by-product of this work is quantification of the power spectrum of extreme flares in AGNs.
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