Discovery of an unusual new radio source in the star-forming galaxy M82: Faint supernova, supermassive blackhole, or an extra-galactic microquasar?

Abstract

A faint new radio source has been detected in the nuclear region of the starburst galaxy M82 using MERLIN radio observations designed to monitor the flux density evolution of the recent bright supernova SN2008iz. This new source was initially identified in observations made between 1-5th May 2009 but had not been present in observations made one week earlier, or in any previous observations of M82. In this paper we report the discovery of this new source and monitoring of its evolution over its first 9 months of existence. The true nature of this new source remains unclear, and we discuss whether this source may be an unusual and faint supernova, a supermassive blackhole associated with the nucleus of M82, or intriguingly the first detection of radio emission from an extragalactic microquasar.

6 pages, 3 figures (2 colour), MNRAS letters accepted

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Cited by in corpus (24)

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• Subarcsecond international LOFAR radio images of the M82 nucleus at 118 MHz and 154 MHz
• LeMMINGs. II. The e-MERLIN legacy survey of nearby galaxies. The deepest radio view of the Palomar sample on parsec scale
• Astrometric observations of X-ray binaries using very long baseline interferometry
• VLBI observations of SN 2008iz: I. Expansion velocity and limits on anisotropic expansion
• Supernova explosions of massive stars and cosmic rays
• Supernovae and radio transients in M 82
• Diffraction-limited Subaru imaging of M82: sharp mid-infrared view of the starburst core
• ASGARD: A Large Survey for Slow Galactic Radio Transients. I. Overview and First Results
• LeMMINGs IV: The X-ray properties of a statistically-complete sample of the nuclei in active and inactive galaxies from the Palomar sample
• Broad band turbulent spectra in gamma-ray burst light curves
• Multi-Epoch Very Long Baseline Interferometric Observations of the Nuclear Starburst Region of NGC 253: Improved modelling of the supernova and star-formation rates
• Dynamical and radiative simulations of $\gamma$-ray jets in microquasars
• Rapid variability of the compact radio sources in Arp220. Evidence for a population of microblazars?
• Discovery of a radio transient in M81
• Unveiling the 100 pc scale nuclear radio structure of NGC 6217 with e-MERLIN and the VLA
• VTC J095517.5+690813: A radio transient from an accretion-induced collapse of a white dwarf?
• Electron cooling and the connection between expansion and flux-density evolution in radio supernovae
• Identification of Intermediate-mass Black Hole Candidates Among a Sample of Sd Galaxies
• One of Everything: The Breakthrough Listen Exotica Catalog
• The LeMMINGs survey: probing sub-kpc radio structures of nearby galaxies with e-MERLIN
• Resolving the masers in M82