Editor’s Note: For the remainder of 2024, we’ll be looking at a few selections that we haven’t yet discussed on AAS Nova from among the most-downloaded articles published in AAS journals this year. The usual posting schedule will resume January 3rd.
A New Population of Mid-Infrared-Selected Tidal Disruption Events: Implications for Tidal Disruption Event Rates and Host Galaxy Properties
Published January 2024
Main takeaway:
A team led by Megan Masterson (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) has scoured data from the Near-Earth Object Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) to find tidal disruption events (TDEs): stars that are torn apart by the tidal forces of a supermassive black hole. The search turned up a dozen TDEs that represent a new population of mid-infrared-detected TDEs. This new population helps to relieve some of the tension between the expected and observed numbers of TDEs.
Why it’s interesting:
The existence of TDEs was first theorized in the 1970s, and the first event in this class was identified in the 1990s. Since then, the number of known TDEs has skyrocketed thanks to sensitive, high-cadence surveys. Most TDEs are identified by their rapid brightening at optical or X-ray wavelengths. Based on existing detections, TDEs appear to be more common in galaxies that fall in between star forming and quiescent, or in galaxies that were highly star forming in the past but are now quiescent. It’s not yet known if TDEs are truly less common in star-forming galaxies, or if dust in the centers of these galaxies simply hides TDEs from view.
How the team collected their sample:
Host galaxies for each of the selected TDE candidates. The 12 galaxies in the clean “gold” sample are marked with stars; the remaining six TDE candidates may instead be weak active galactic nuclei. Click to enlarge. [Masterson et al. 2024]
Citation
Megan Masterson et al 2024 ApJ 961 211. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ad18bb