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Hull, Charles

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Hull, Charles

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Author's Publications: search.filters.isAuthorOfPublication.ae287fb3-cad9-462c-9bf3-cb9b7f8c7586

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    Birth of a relativistic outflow in the unusual γ-ray transient Swift J164449.3+573451
    (Springer Nature, 2011) Zauderer, B; Berger, Edo; Soderberg, Alicia; Loeb, Abraham; Narayan, Ramesh; Frail, D. A.; Petitpas, Glen; Brunthaler, A.; Chornock, R; Carpenter, J. M.; Pooley, G. G.; Mooley, K.; Kulkarni, S. R.; Margutti, Raffaella; Fox, D. B.; Nakar, E.; Patel, Nimesh; Volgenau, N. H.; Culverhouse, T. L.; Bietenholz, M. F.; Rupen, M. P.; Max-Moerbeck, W.; Readhead, A. C. S.; Richards, J.; Shepherd, M.; Storm, S.; Hull, Charles
    Active galactic nuclei, which are powered by long-term accretion onto central supermassive black holes, produce1 relativistic jets with lifetimes of at least one million years, and the observation of the birth of such a jet is therefore unlikely. Transient accretion onto a supermassive black hole, for example through the tidal disruption2, 3 of a stray star, thus offers a rare opportunity to study the birth of a relativistic jet. On 25 March 2011, an unusual transient source (Swift J164449.3+573451) was found4, potentially representing5, 6 such an accretion event. Here we report observations spanning centimetre to millimetre wavelengths and covering the first month of evolution of a luminous radio transient associated with Swift J164449.3+573451. The radio transient coincides7 with the nucleus of an inactive galaxy. We conclude that we are seeing a newly formed relativistic outflow, launched by transient accretion onto a million-solar-mass black hole. A relativistic outflow is not predicted in this situation, but we show that the tidal disruption of a star naturally explains the observed high-energy properties and radio luminosity and the inferred rate of such events. The weaker beaming in the radio-frequency spectrum relative to γ-rays or X-rays suggests that radio searches may uncover similar events out to redshifts of z ≈ 6.