The On-axis Jetted Tidal Disruption Event AT2022cmc: X-Ray Observations and Broadband Spectral Modeling

Bibliographic Details
Title: The On-axis Jetted Tidal Disruption Event AT2022cmc: X-Ray Observations and Broadband Spectral Modeling
Authors: Yuhan Yao, Wenbin Lu, Fiona Harrison, S. R. Kulkarni, Suvi Gezari, Muryel Guolo, S. Bradley Cenko, Anna Y. Q. Ho
Source: The Astrophysical Journal, Vol 965, Iss 1, p 39 (2024)
Publisher Information: IOP Publishing, 2024.
Publication Year: 2024
Collection: LCC:Astrophysics
Subject Terms: Relativistic jets, Tidal disruption, Black hole physics, X-ray transient sources, Supermassive black holes, High energy astrophysics, Astrophysics, QB460-466
More Details: AT2022cmc was recently reported as the first on-axis jetted tidal disruption event (TDE) discovered in the last decade, and the fourth on-axis jetted TDE candidate known so far. In this work, we present NuSTAR hard X-ray (3–30 keV) observations of AT2022cmc, as well as soft X-ray (0.3–6 keV) observations obtained by NICER, Swift, and XMM-Newton. Our analysis reveals that the broadband X-ray spectra can be well described by a broken power law with f _ν ∝ ν ^−0.5 ( f _ν ∝ ν ^−1 ) below (above) the rest-frame break energy of E _bk ∼ 10 keV at the observer frame t _obs = 7.8 and 17.6 days since discovery. At t _obs = 36.2 days, the X-ray spectrum is consistent with either a single power law or a broken power law. By modeling the spectral energy distribution from radio to hard X-ray across the three NuSTAR observing epochs, we find that the submillimeter/radio emission originates from external shocks at large distances ≳10 ^17 cm from the black hole, the UV/optical light comes from a thermal envelope with radius ∼10 ^15 cm, and the X-ray emission is consistent with synchrotron radiation powered by energy dissipation at intermediate radii within the (likely magnetically dominated) jet. We constrain the bulk Lorentz factor of the jet to be of the order 10–100. Our interpretation differs from the model proposed by Pasham et al. where both the radio and X-rays come from the same emitting zone in a matter-dominated jet. Our model for the jet X-ray emission has broad implications on the nature of relativistic jets in other sources such as gamma-ray bursts.
Document Type: article
File Description: electronic resource
Language: English
ISSN: 1538-4357
Relation: https://doaj.org/toc/1538-4357
DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ad2b6b
Access URL: https://doaj.org/article/4053c0371c6d4c0c8b01c21eacec3f8a
Accession Number: edsdoj.4053c0371c6d4c0c8b01c21eacec3f8a
Database: Directory of Open Access Journals
More Details
ISSN:15384357
DOI:10.3847/1538-4357/ad2b6b
Published in:The Astrophysical Journal
Language:English