Over a broad range of initial inclinations and eccentricities, an appreciable fraction of hierarchical triple star systems with similar masses are essentially unaffected by the Kozai-Lidov mechanism ...(KM) until the primary in the central binary evolves into a compact object. Once it does, it may be much less massive than the other components in the ternary, enabling the "eccentric Kozai mechanism (EKM)": the mutual inclination between the inner and outer binaries can flip signs driving the inner binary to very high eccentricity, leading to a close binary or collision. We demonstrate this "mass-loss-induced eccentric Kozai" (MIEK) mechanism by considering an example system and defining an ad hoc minimal separation between the inner two members at which tidal effects become important. For fixed initial masses and semimajor axes, but uniform distributions of eccentricity and cosine of the mutual inclination, ~10% of systems interact tidally or collide while the primary is on the main sequence (MS) due to the KM or EKM. Those affected by the EKM are not captured by earlier quadrupole-order secular calculations. We show that fully ~30% of systems interact tidally or collide for the first time as the primary swells to AU scales, mostly as a result of the KM. Finally, ~2% of systems interact tidally or collide for the first time after the primary sheds most of its mass and becomes a white dwarf (WD), mostly as a result of the MIEK mechanism. These findings motivate a more detailed study of mass loss in triple systems and the formation of close neutron star (NS)/WD-MS and NS/WD-NS/WD binaries without an initial common envelope phase.
Kozai-Lidov (KL) oscillations can accelerate compact object mergers via gravitational wave radiation by driving the inner binaries of hierarchical triples to high eccentricities. We perform direct ...three-body integrations of high-mass-ratio compact object triple systems using fewbody including post-Newtonian terms. We find that the inner binary undergoes rapid eccentricity oscillations (REOs) on the time-scale of the outer orbital period which drive it to higher eccentricities than secular theory would otherwise predict, resulting in substantially reduced merger times. For a uniform distribution of tertiary eccentricity (e
2), ∼40 per cent of systems merge within ∼1-2 eccentric KL time-scales whereas secular theory predicts that only ∼20 per cent of such systems merge that rapidly. This discrepancy becomes especially pronounced at low
e
2, with secular theory overpredicting the merger time by many orders of magnitude. We show that a non-negligible fraction of systems have eccentricity >0.8 when they merge, in contrast to predictions from secular theory. Our results are applicable to high-mass-ratio triple systems containing black holes or neutron stars. In objects in which tidal effects are important, such as white dwarfs, stars, and planets, REOs can reduce the tidal circularization time-scale by an order of magnitude and bring the components of the inner binary into closer orbits than would be possible in the secular approximation.
We compare the luminosity, radius, and temperature evolution of the UV/optical blackbodies for 21 well-observed tidal disruption events (TDEs), 8 of which were discovered by the All-Sky Automated ...Survey for Supernovae. We find that the blackbody radii generally increase prior to peak and slowly decline at late times. The blackbody temperature evolution is generally flat, with a few objects showing small-scale variations. The bolometric UV/optical luminosities generally evolve smoothly and flatten out at late times. Finally, we find an apparent correlation between the peak luminosity and the decline rate of TDEs. This relationship is strongest when comparing the peak luminosity to its decline over 40 days. A linear fit yields = + in cgs, where .
A Swift Fix for Nuclear Outbursts Hinkle, Jason T.; Holoien, Thomas W.-S.; Shappee, Benjamin. J. ...
The Astrophysical journal,
04/2021, Letnik:
910, Številka:
2
Journal Article
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Abstract
In November 2020, the Swift team announced an update to the UltraViolet and Optical Telescope calibration to correct for the loss of sensitivity over time. This correction affects ...observations in the three near-ultraviolet (UV) filters, by up to 0.3 mag in some cases. As UV photometry is critical to characterizing tidal disruption events (TDEs) and other peculiar nuclear outbursts, we recomputed published Swift data for TDEs and other singular nuclear outbursts with Swift photometry in 2015 or later as a service to the community. Using archival UV, optical, and infrared photometry, we ran host SED fits for each host galaxy. From these, we computed synthetic host magnitudes and host-galaxy properties. We calculated host-subtracted magnitudes for each transient and computed blackbody fits. In addition to the nuclear outbursts, we include the ambiguous transient ATLAS18qqn (AT2018cow), which has been classified as a potential TDE on an intermediate-mass black hole. Finally, with updated bolometric light curves, we recover the relationship of Hinkle et al., where more-luminous TDEs decay more slowly than less-luminous TDEs, with decreased scatter compared to the original relationship.
We present the discovery and early evolution of ASASSN-19bt, a tidal disruption event (TDE) discovered by the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) at a distance of d 115 Mpc and the ...first TDE to be detected by TESS. As the TDE is located in the TESS Continuous Viewing Zone, our data set includes 30 minute cadence observations starting on 2018 July 25, and we precisely measure that the TDE begins to brighten ∼8.3 days before its discovery. Our data set also includes 18 epochs of Swift UVOT and XRT observations, 2 epochs of XMM-Newton observations, 13 spectroscopic observations, and ground data from the Las Cumbres Observatory telescope network, spanning from 32 days before peak through 37 days after peak. ASASSN-19bt thus has the most detailed pre-peak data set for any TDE. The TESS light curve indicates that the transient began to brighten on 2019 January 21.6 and that for the first 15 days, its rise was consistent with a flux ∝t2 power-law model. The optical/UV emission is well fit by a blackbody spectral energy distribution, and ASASSN-19bt exhibits an early spike in its luminosity and temperature roughly 32 rest-frame days before peak and spanning up to 14 days, which has not been seen in other TDEs, possibly because UV observations were not triggered early enough to detect it. It peaked on 2019 March 4.9 at a luminosity of L 1.3 × 1044 erg s−1 and radiated E 3.2 × 1050 erg during the 41 day rise to peak. X-ray observations after peak indicate a softening of the hard X-ray emission prior to peak, reminiscent of the hard/soft states in X-ray binaries.
We accurately determine a new Cepheid distance to M101 (NGC 5457) using archival Hubble Space Telescope (HST)/Advanced Camera for Surveys V and I time series photometry of two fields within the ...galaxy. We make a slight modification to the ISIS image subtraction package to obtain optimal differential light curves from HST data. We discovered 827 Cepheids with periods between 3 and 80 days, the largest extragalactic sample of Cepheids observed with HST by a factor of two. With this large Cepheid sample, we find that the relative distance of M101 from the Large Magellanic Cloud is Delta *D Delta *mLMC = 10.63 ? 0.04 (random) ? 0.06 (systematic) mag. If we use the geometrically determined maser distance to NGC 4258 as our distance anchor, the distance modulus of M101 is Delta *m0 = 29.04 ? 0.05 (random) ? 0.18 (systematic) mag or D = 6.4 ? 0.2 (random) ? 0.5 (systematic) Mpc. The uncertainty is dominated by the maser distance estimate (?0.15 mag), which should improve over the next few years. We determine a steep metallicity dependence, Delta *g, for our Cepheid sample through two methods, yielding Delta *g = --0.80 ? 0.21 (random) ? 0.06 (systematic) mag dex--1 and Delta *g = --0.72+0.22 -- 0.25 (random) ? 0.06 (systematic) mag dex--1. We see marginal evidence for variations in the Wesenheit period-luminosity relation slope as a function of deprojected galactocentric radius. We also use the tip of the red giant branch method to independently determine the distance modulus to M101 of Delta *m0 = 29.05 ? 0.06 (random) ? 0.12 (systematic) mag.
The Dynamic, Chimeric Inner Disk of PDS 70 Gaidos, Eric; Thanathibodee, Thanawuth; Hoffman, Andrew ...
The Astrophysical journal,
05/2024, Letnik:
966, Številka:
2
Journal Article
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Abstract Transition disks, with inner regions depleted in dust and gas, could represent later stages of protoplanetary disk evolution when newly formed planets are emerging. The PDS 70 system has ...attracted particular interest because of the presence of two giant planets in orbits at tens of astronomical units within the inner disk cavity, at least one of which is itself accreting. However, the region around PDS 70 most relevant to understanding the planet populations revealed by exoplanet surveys of middle-aged stars is the inner disk, which is the dominant source of the system’s excess infrared emission but only marginally resolved by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. Here we present and analyze time-series optical and infrared photometry and spectroscopy that reveal the inner disk to be dynamic on timescales of days to years, with occultation by submicron dust dimming the star at optical wavelengths, and 3–5 μ m emission varying due to changes in disk structure. Remarkably, the infrared emission from the innermost region (nearly) disappears for ∼1 yr. We model the spectral energy distribution of the system and its time variation with a flattened warm ( T ≲ 600 K) disk and a hotter (1200 K) dust that could represent an inner rim or wall. The high dust-to-gas ratio of the inner disk, relative to material accreting from the outer disk, means that the former could be a chimera consisting of depleted disk gas that is subsequently enriched with dust and volatiles produced by collisions and evaporation of planetesimals in the inner zone.
We examine the early phase intrinsic (B − V)0 color evolution of a dozen SNe Ia discovered within three days of the inferred time of first light (tfirst) and have (B − V)0 color information beginning ...within five days of tfirst. The sample indicates there are two distinct early populations. The first is a population exhibiting blue colors that slowly evolve, and the second population exhibits red colors and evolves more rapidly. We find that the early blue events are all 1991T/1999aa-like with more luminous, slower declining light curves than those exhibiting early red colors. Placing the first sample on the Branch diagram (i.e., ratio of Si ii λλ5972, 6355 pseudo-Equivalent widths) indicates that all blue objects are of the Branch shallow silicon (SS) spectral type, while all early red events except for the 2000cx-like SN 2012fr are of the Branch Core Normal (CN) or CooL (CL) type. A number of potential processes contributing to the early emission are explored, and we find that, in general, the viewing-angle dependance inherent in the companion collision model is inconsistent with all of the SS objects with early-time observations being blue and exhibiting an excess. We caution that great care must be taken when interpreting early phase light curves as there may be a variety of physical processes that are possibly at play and significant theoretical work remains to be done.
The Largest M Dwarf Flares from ASAS-SN Schmidt, Sarah J.; Shappee, Benjamin J.; van Saders, Jennifer L. ...
The Astrophysical journal,
05/2019, Letnik:
876, Številka:
2
Journal Article
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The All-sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) is the only project in existence to scan the entire sky in optical light approximately every day, reaching a depth of g ∼ 18 mag. Over the course ...of its first 4 yr of transient alerts (2013-2016), ASAS-SN observed 53 events classified as likely M dwarf flares. We present follow-up photometry and spectroscopy of all 53 candidates, confirming flare events on 47 M dwarfs, one K dwarf, and one L dwarf. The remaining four objects include a previously identified T Tauri star, a young star with outbursts, and two objects too faint to confirm. A detailed examination of the 49 flare star light curves revealed an additional six flares on five stars, resulting in a total of 55 flares on 49 objects ranging in V-band contrast from ΔV = −1 to −10.2 mag. Using an empirical flare model to estimate the unobserved portions of the flare light curve, we obtain lower limits on the V-band energy emitted during each flare, spanning -35, which are among the most energetic flares detected on M dwarfs. The ASAS-SN M dwarf flare stars show a higher fraction of H emission, as well as stronger H emission, compared to M dwarfs selected without reference to activity, consistent with belonging to a population of more magnetically active stars. We also examined the distribution of tangential velocities, finding that the ASAS-SN flaring M dwarfs are likely to be members of the thin disk and are neither particularly young nor old.
We study the sudden optical and ultraviolet (UV) brightening of 1ES 1927+654, which until now was known as a narrow-line active galactic nucleus (AGN). 1ES 1927+654 was part of the small and peculiar ...class of "true Type-2" AGNs that lack broad emission lines and line-of-sight obscuration. Our high-cadence spectroscopic monitoring captures the appearance of a blue, featureless continuum, followed several weeks later by the appearance of broad Balmer emission lines. This timescale is generally consistent with the expected light travel time between the central engine and the broadline emission region in (persistent) broadline AGN. Hubble Space Telescope spectroscopy reveals no evidence for broad UV emission lines (e.g., C iv λ1549, C iii λ1909, Mg ii λ2798), probably owing to dust in the broadline emission region. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case where the lag between the change in continuum and in broadline emission of a "changing look" AGN has been temporally resolved. The nature and timescales of the photometric and spectral evolution disfavor both a change in line-of-sight obscuration and a change of the overall rate of gas inflow as driving the drastic spectral transformations seen in this AGN. Although the peak luminosity and timescales are consistent with those of tidal disruption events seen in inactive galaxies, the spectral properties are not. The X-ray emission displays a markedly different behavior, with frequent flares on timescales of hours to days, and will be presented in a companion publication.
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