Evans, PA, Nixon, CJ, Campana, S, Charalampopoulos, P, Perley, DA, Breeveld, AA, Page, KL, Oates, SR, Eyles-Ferris, RAJ, Malesani, DB, Izzo, L, Goad, MR, O'Brien, PT, Osborne, JP and Sbarufatti, B (2023) Monthly quasi-periodic eruptions from repeated stellar disruption by a massive black hole. Nature Astronomy, 7 (11). pp. 1368-1375. ISSN 2397-3366

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Abstract

In recent years, searches of archival X-ray data have revealed galaxies exhibiting nuclear quasi-periodic eruptions with periods of several hours. These are reminiscent of the tidal disruption of a star by a supermassive black hole, and the repeated, partial stripping of a white dwarf in an eccentric orbit around a∼105M⊙ black hole provides an attractive model. A separate class of periodic nuclear transients, with significantly longer timescales, have recently been discovered optically, and may arise from the partial stripping of a main-sequence star by a∼107M⊙black hole. No clear connection between these classes has been made. We present the discovery of an X-ray nuclear transient which shows quasi periodic outbursts with a period of weeks. We discuss possible origin for the emission, and propose that this system bridges the two existing classes outlined above. This discovery was made possible by the rapid identification, dissemination and follow up of an Xray transient found by the new live Swift-XRT transient detector, demonstrating the importance of low-latency, sensitive searches for X-ray transients.

Item Type:	Article
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/2309.02500v1
SWORD Depositor:	A Symplectic
Date Deposited:	03 Jan 2024 13:50
Last Modified:	03 Jan 2024 14:00
DOI or ID number:	10.1038/s41550-023-02073-y
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/22155

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