Limits on mass outflow from optical tidal disruption events

Tatsuya Matsumoto*, Tsvi Piran

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

15 Scopus citations

Abstract

The discovery of optical/UV (ultraviolet) tidal disruption events (TDEs) was surprising. The expectation was that, upon returning to the pericentre, the stellar-debris stream will form a compact disc that will emit soft X-rays. Indeed, the first TDEs were discovered in this energy band. A common explanation for the optical/UV events is that surrounding optically thick matter reprocesses the disc's X-ray emission and emits it from a large photosphere. If accretion follows the super-Eddington mass infall rate, it would inevitably result in an energetic outflow, providing naturally the reprocessing matter. We describe here a new method to estimate, using the observed luminosity and temperature, the mass and energy of outflows from optical transients. When applying this method to a sample of supernovae, our estimates are consistent with a more detailed hydrodynamic modelling. For the current sample of a few dozen optical TDEs, the observed luminosity and temperature imply outflows that are significantly more massive than typical stellar masses, posing a problem to this common reprocessing picture.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3385-3393
Number of pages9
JournalMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Volume502
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Apr 2021

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society.

Keywords

  • radiation mechanisms: thermal
  • supernovae: general
  • transients: supernovae
  • transients: tidal disruption events

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