Relativistic jet activity from the tidal disruption of a star by a massive black hole

• Published in: Nature (London) 2011-08, Vol.476 (7361), p.421-424
• Main Authors: Burrows, D. N., Kennea, J. A., Ghisellini, G., Mangano, V., Zhang, B., Page, K. L., Eracleous, M., Romano, P., Sakamoto, T., Falcone, A. D., Osborne, J. P., Campana, S., Beardmore, A. P., Breeveld, A. A., Chester, M. M., Corbet, R., Covino, S., Cummings, J. R., D'Avanzo, P., D'Elia, V., Esposito, P., Evans, P. A., Fugazza, D., Gelbord, J. M., Hiroi, K., Holland, S. T., Huang, K. Y., Im, M., Israel, G., Jeon, Y., Jeon, Y.-B., Jun, H. D., Kawai, N., Kim, J. H., Krimm, H. A., Marshall, F. E., P. Mészáros, Negoro, H., Omodei, N., Park, W.-K., Perkins, J. S., Sugizaki, M., Sung, H.-I., Tagliaferri, G., Troja, E., Ueda, Y., Urata, Y., Usui, R., Antonelli, L. A., Barthelmy, S. D., Cusumano, G., Giommi, P., Melandri, A., Perri, M., Racusin, J. L., Sbarufatti, B., Siegel, M. H., Gehrels, N.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 639/33/34/867; Accretion; Accretion disks; Artificial satellites; Astronomy; ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS; astrophysics; Black holes; Black holes (astronomy); Discovery and exploration; Disruption; Earth, ocean, space; Exact sciences and technology; Flares; Galaxies; Humanities and Social Sciences; Late stages of stellar evolution (including black holes); letter; Mathematical models; multidisciplinary; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Spectra; Stars; X-rays
• ISSN: 0028-0836; 1476-4687
• DOI: 10.1038/nature10374

Birth of a black-hole relativistic jet Two groups report observations of the X-ray source Swift J164449.3+573451, which was discovered when it triggered the Swift Burst Alert Telescope on 28 March 2011. Burrows et al . report that the source has increased in brightness in the X-ray band more than 10,000-fold since 1990, and by more than 100-fold since early 2010. They conclude that we are observing the onset of relativistic jet activity from a supermassive black hole. Zauderer et al . arrive at a similar conclusion based on their observation of a radio transient associated with the source, and extensive monitoring at centimetre to millimetre wavelengths during the first month of its evolution. They estimate the mass of the black hole at around 10 6 solar masses. Supermassive black holes have powerful gravitational fields with strong gradients that can destroy stars that get too close 1 , 2 , producing a bright flare in ultraviolet and X-ray spectral regions from stellar debris that forms an accretion disk around the black hole 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 . The aftermath of this process may have been seen several times over the past two decades in the form of sparsely sampled, slowly fading emission from distant galaxies 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , but the onset of the stellar disruption event has not hitherto been observed. Here we report observations of a bright X-ray flare from the extragalactic transient Swift J164449.3+573451. This source increased in brightness in the X-ray band by a factor of at least 10,000 since 1990 and by a factor of at least 100 since early 2010. We conclude that we have captured the onset of relativistic jet activity from a supermassive black hole. A companion paper 15 comes to similar conclusions on the basis of radio observations. This event is probably due to the tidal disruption of a star falling into a supermassive black hole, but the detailed behaviour differs from current theoretical models of such events.