1,032 research outputs found
Long Fading Mid-Infrared Emission in Transient Coronal Line Emitters: Dust Echo of Tidal Disruption Flare
The sporadic accretion following the tidal disruption of a star by a
super-massive black hole (TDE) leads to a bright UV and soft X-ray flare in the
galactic nucleus. The gas and dust surrounding the black hole responses to such
a flare with an echo in emission lines and infrared emission. In this paper, we
report the detection of long fading mid-IR emission lasting up to 14 years
after the flare in four TDE candidates with transient coronal lines using the
WISE public data release. We estimate that the reprocessed mid-IR luminosities
are in the range between and erg~s
and dust temperature in the range of 570-800K when WISE first detected these
sources three to five years after the flare. Both luminosity and dust
temperature decreases with time. We interpret the mid-IR emission as the
infrared echo of the tidal disruption flare. We estimate the UV luminosity at
the peak flare to be 1 to 30 times erg s and for warm dust
masses to be in the range of 0.05-1.3 Msun within a few parsecs. Our results
suggest that the mid-infrared echo is a general signature of TDE in the
gas-rich environment
Mid-infrared variability of changing-look AGN
It is known that some active galactic nuclei (AGNs) transited from type 1 to
type 2 or vice versa. There are two explanations for the so-called changing
look AGNs: one is the dramatic change of the obscuration along the
line-of-sight, the other is the variation of accretion rate. In this paper, we
report the detection of large amplitude variations in the mid-infrared
luminosity during the transitions in 10 changing look AGNs using WISE and newly
released NEOWISE-R data. The mid-infrared light curves of 10 objects echoes the
variability in the optical band with a time lag expected for dust reprocessing.
The large variability amplitude is inconsistent with the scenario of varying
obscuration, rather supports the scheme of dramatic change in the accretion
rate.Comment: Published by ApjL, 7 pages, 3 figures, 2 table
Scribble-based gradient mesh recoloring
Previous gradient mesh recoloring methods usually have dependencies on an additional reference image and the rasterized gradient mesh. To circumvent such dependencies, we propose a user scribble-based recoloring method, in which users are allowed to annotate gradient meshes with a few color scribbles. Our approach builds an auxiliary mesh from gradient meshes, namely control net, by taking both colors and local color gradients at mesh points into account. We then develop an extended chrominance blending method to propagate the user specified colors over the control net. The recolored gradient mesh is finally reconstructed from the recolored control net. Experiments validate the effectiveness of our approach on multiple gradient meshes. Compared with various alternative solutions, our method has no color bleedings nor sampling artifacts, and can achieve fast performance
Discovery of a Mid-infrared Echo from the TDE candidate in the nucleus of ULIRG F01004-2237
We present the mid-infrared (MIR) light curves (LCs) of a tidal disruption
event (TDE) candidate in the center of a nearby ultraluminous infrared galaxy
(ULIRG) F01004-2237 using archival {\it WISE} and {\it NEOWISE} data from 2010
to 2016. At the peak of the optical flare, F01004-2237 was IR quiescent. About
three years later, its MIR fluxes have shown a steady increase, rising by 1.34
and 1.04 mag in and m up to the end of 2016. The host-subtracted
MIR peak luminosity is \,erg\,s. We interpret the MIR
LCs as an infrared echo, i.e. dust reprocessed emission of the optical flare.
Fitting the MIR LCs using our dust model, we infer a dust torus of the size of
a few parsecs at some inclined angle. The derived dust temperatures range from
\,K, and the warm dust mass is . Such a large mass
implies that the dust cannot be newly formed. We also derive the UV luminosity
of \,erg\,s. The inferred total IR energy is
\,erg, suggesting a large dust covering factor. Finally, our
dust model suggests that the long tail of the optical flare could be due to
dust scattering
Mid-infrared flare of TDE candidate PS16dtm: dust echo and implications for the spectral evolution
PS16dtm was classified as a candidate tidal disruption event (TDE) in a dwarf
Seyfert 1 galaxy with low-mass black hole () and has presented
various intriguing photometric and spectra characteristics. Using the archival
WISE and the newly released NEOWISE data, we found PS16dtm is experiencing a
mid-infrared (MIR) flare which started days before the first optical
detection. Interpreting the MIR flare as a dust echo requires close
pre-existing dust with a high covering factor, and suggests the optical flare
may have brightened slowly for some time before it became bright detectable
from the ground. More evidence is given at the later epochs. At the peak of the
optical light curve, the new inner radius of the dust torus has grown to much
larger size, a factor of 7 of the initial radius due to strong radiation field.
At days after the first optical detection, the dust temperature has
dropped well below the sublimation temperature. Other peculiar spectral
features shown by PS16dtm are the transient, prominent FeII emission lines and
outflows indicated by broad absorption lines detected during the optical flare.
Our model explains the enhanced FeII emission from iron newly released from the
evaporated dust. The observed broad absorption line outflow could be explained
by accelerated gas in the dust torus due to the radiation pressure.Comment: Accepted by ApJ, 5 figure
Long-Term Decline of the Mid-Infrared Emission of Normal Galaxies: Dust Echo of Tidal Disruption Flare?
We report the discovery of a sample of 19 low redshift (z<0.22)
spectroscopically non-Seyfert galaxies that show slow declining mid-infrared
(MIR) light-curves (LCs), similar to those of tidal disruption event (TDE)
candidates with extreme coronal lines. Two sources also showed a relatively
fast rising MIR LCs. They consist of 61% sample of the WISE MIR variable
non-Seyfert galaxies with SDSS spectra. In a comparison sample of optically
selected Seyfert galaxies, the fraction of sources with such a LC is only 15%.
After rejecting 5 plausible obscured Seyfert galaxies with red MIR colours,
remaining 14 objects are studied in detail in this paper. We fit the declining
part of LC with an exponential law, and the decay time is typically one year.
The observed peak MIR luminosities () after subtracting host
galaxies are in the range of a few 10^42 to 10^44 erg~s^-1 with a median of
5x10^43 erg~s^-1 in the W2 band. The black hole masses distribute in a wide
range with more than half in between 10^7 to 10^8 ~M_sun, but significantly
different from that of optical/UV selected TDEs. Furthermore, MIR luminosities
are correlated with black hole masses, the stellar mass or luminosity of their
host bulges. Most galaxies in the sample are red and luminous with an absolute
magnitude of r between -20 to -23. We estimate the rate of event about 10^-4
gal^-1~yr^-1 among luminous red galaxies. We discuss several possibilities for
the variable infrared sources, and conclude that most likely, they are caused
by short sporadic fueling to the supermassive black holes via either the
instability of accretion flows or tidal disruption of stars.Comment: 32 pages, 12 figures. Accepted to MNRA
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