Ho, AYQ, Perley, DA, Chen, P, Schulze, S, Dhillon, V, Kumar, H, Suresh, A, Swain, V, Bremer, M, Smartt, SJ, Anderson, JP, Anupama, GC, Awiphan, S, Barway, S, Bellm, EC, Ben-Ami, S, Bhalerao, V, Boer, TD, Brink, TG, Burruss, R et al, Chandra, P, Chen, T-W, Chen, W-P, Cooke, J, Coughlin, MW, Das, KK, Drake, AJ, Filippenko, AV, Freeburn, J, Fremling, C, Fulton, MD, Gal-Yam, A, Galbany, L, Gao, H, Graham, MJ, Gromadzki, M, Gutiérrez, CP, Hinds, K-R, Inserra, C, Nayana, AJ, Karambelkar, V, Kasliwal, MM, Kulkarni, S, Müller-Bravo, TE, Magnier, EA, Mahabal, AA, Moore, T, Ngeow, C-C, Nicholl, M, Ofek, EO, Omand, CMB, Onori, F, Pan, Y-C, Pessi, PJ, Petitpas, G, Polishook, D, Poshyachinda, S, Pursiainen, M, Riddle, R, Rodriguez, AC, Rusholme, B, Segre, E, Sharma, Y, Smith, KW, Sollerman, J, Srivastav, S, Strotjohann, NL, Suhr, M, Svinkin, D, Wang, Y, Wiseman, P, Wold, A, Yang, S, Yang, Y, Yao, Y, Young, DR and Zheng, W (2023) Minutes-duration Optical Flares with Supernova Luminosities. Nature, 623. pp. 927-931. ISSN 0028-0836

Text 2311.10195v1.pdf - Accepted Version Restricted to Repository staff only until 15 May 2024. Download (10MB)

Abstract

In recent years, certain luminous extragalactic optical transients have been observed to last only a few days1. Their short observed duration implies a different powering mechanism from the most common luminous extragalactic transients (supernovae), whose timescale is weeks2. Some short-duration transients, most notably AT2018cow (ref. 3), show blue optical colours and bright radio and X-ray emission4. Several AT2018cow-like transients have shown hints of a long-lived embedded energy source5, such as X-ray variability6,7, prolonged ultraviolet emission8, a tentative X-ray quasiperiodic oscillation9,10 and large energies coupled to fast (but subrelativistic) radio-emitting ejecta11,12. Here we report observations of minutes-duration optical flares in the aftermath of an AT2018cow-like transient, AT2022tsd (the ‘Tasmanian Devil’). The flares occur over a period of months, are highly energetic and are probably nonthermal, implying that they arise from a near-relativistic outflow or jet. Our observations confirm that, in some AT2018cow-like transients, the embedded energy source is a compact object, either a magnetar or an accreting black hole.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This version of the article has been accepted for publication, after peer review (when applicable) and is subject to Springer Nature’s AM terms of use, but is not the Version of Record and does not reflect post-acceptance improvements, or any corrections. The Version of Record is available online at: http://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06673-6
Uncontrolled Keywords:	astro-ph.HE; astro-ph.HE
Subjects:	Q Science > QB Astronomy Q Science > QC Physics
Divisions:	Astrophysics Research Institute
Publisher:	Nature Publishing Group
Related URLs:	http://arxiv.org/abs/2311.10195v1
SWORD Depositor:	A Symplectic
Date Deposited:	03 Jan 2024 14:23
Last Modified:	03 Jan 2024 14:30
DOI or ID number:	10.1038/s41586-023-06673-6
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/22152

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