The Sudden Death of the Nearest Quasar

Abstract

Galaxy formation is significantly modulated by energy output from supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies which grow in highly efficient luminous quasar phases. The timescale on which black holes transition into and out of such phases is, however, unknown. We present the first measurement of the shutdown timescale for an individual quasar using X-ray observations of the nearby galaxy IC 2497, which hosted a luminous quasar no more than 70,000 years ago that is still seen as a light echo in `Hanny's Voorwerp', but whose present-day radiative output is lower by at least 2 and more likely by over 4 orders of magnitude. This extremely rapid shutdown provides new insights into the physics of accretion in supermassive black holes, and may signal a transition of the accretion disk to a radiatively inefficient state.

arXiv comment4 pages, 2 figures. Astrophysical Journal Letters, in press

References in corpus (20)

• Advection-Dominated Accretion: A Self-Similar Solution
• On the Black Hole Mass - Bulge Mass Relation
• Galaxy Zoo : Morphologies derived from visual inspection of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Towards a unified model for black hole X-ray binary jets
• Active Galactic Nuclei as scaled-up Galactic black holes
• The distribution of absorbing column densities among Seyfert 2 galaxies
• The Properties of X-Ray and Optical Light Curves of X-Ray Novae
• GRS 1915+105 and the Disc-Jet Coupling in Accreting Black Hole Systems
• The disc instability model for X-ray transients: evidence for truncation and irradiation
• The IRAS 1.2 Jy Survey: Redshift Data
• Galaxy Zoo : 'Hanny's Voorwerp', a quasar light echo?
• Ultraviolet Detection of the Tidal Disruption of a Star by a Supermassive Black Hole
• Accretion states and radio loudness in Active Galactic Nuclei: analogies with X-ray binaries
• The Connection Between Radio Quiet AGN and the High/Soft State of X-Ray Binaries
• Suzaku Observations of Active Galactic Nuclei Detected in the Swift/BAT Survey: Discovery of "New Type" of Buried Supermassive Black Holes
• A Huge Drop in X-ray Luminosity of the Non-Active Galaxy RXJ1242.6-1119A, and First Post-Flare Spectrum - Testing the Tidal Disruption Scenario
• Time-Dependent Disk Models for the Microquasar GRS1915+105
• Scaling variability from stellar to supermassive black holes
• Revealing Hanny's Voorwerp: radio observations of IC 2497
• Characterizing the radio--X-ray connection in GRS 1915+105

Cited by in corpus (60)

• Black hole variability and the star formation-AGN connection: Do all star-forming galaxies host an AGN?
• The Galaxy Zoo survey for giant AGN-ionized clouds: past and present black-hole accretion events
• Towards an Understanding of Changing-Look Quasars: An Archival Spectroscopic Search in SDSS
• iPTF Discovery of the Rapid "Turn On" of a Luminous Quasar
• Quasar Feedback in the Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxy F11119+3257: Connecting the Accretion Disk Wind with the Large-Scale Molecular Outflow
• The History and Environment of a Faded Quasar: Hubble Space Telescope observations of Hanny's Voorwerp and IC 2497
• HST Imaging of Fading AGN Candidates I: Host-Galaxy Properties and Origin of the Extended Gas
• Dissecting Galaxies: Spatial and Spectral Separation of Emission Excited by Star Formation and AGN Activity
• X-ray Echo from the Sagittarius C Complex and 500-year Activity History of Sagittarius A*
• Comprehensive Broadband X-ray and Multiwavelength Study of Active Galactic Nuclei in Local 57 Ultra/luminous Infrared Galaxies Observed with NuSTAR and/or Swift/BAT
• A sample of Seyfert-2 galaxies with ultra-luminous galaxy-wide NLRs -- Quasar light echos?
• Time-dependent behaviour of quasar proximity zones at $z\sim 6$
• Star formation in self-gravitating disks in active galactic nuclei. I. Metallicity gradients in broad line regions
• Tracing the evolution of Active Galactic Nuclei host galaxies over the last 9 Gyrs of Cosmic time
• Galactic Rings Revisited. I. CVRHS Classifications of 3962 Ringed Galaxies from the Galaxy Zoo 2 Database
• Overturning the Case for Gravitational Powering in the Prototypical Cooling Lyman-alpha Nebula
• Extended X-ray emission in the IC 2497 - Hanny's Voorwerp system: energy injection in the gas around a fading AGN
• He II Proximity Effect and the Lifetime of Quasars
• Evidence for Short $\sim 1$ Myr Lifetimes from the He II Proximity Zones of $z\sim 4$ Quasars
• The [O III] Nebula of the Merger Remnant NGC 7252: A Likely Faint Ionization Echo
• Interactions of Astrophysical Neutrinos with Dark Matter: A model building perspective
• Probing the Origin of Changing-look Quasar Transitions with Chandra
• The long-term millimeter activity of active galactic nuclei
• About AGN ionization echoes, thermal echoes, and ionization deficits in low redshift Lyman-alpha blobs
• A forward modelling approach to AGN variability -- Method description and early applications
• Discovery of Dying Active Galactic Nucleus in Arp 187: Experience of Drastic Luminosity Decline within $10^4$ years
• Massive outflow properties suggest AGN fade slowly
• Parsec-scale radio morphology and variability of a changing-look AGN: the case of Mrk 590
• The Thermal Proximity Effect: A New Probe of He II Reionization History and the Quasar Lifetime
• Optical, near-IR and sub-mm IFU Observations of the nearby dual AGN Mrk 463
• Gemini Imaging of the Host Galaxies of Changing-Look Quasars
• The "Green Bean" Galaxy SDSS J224024.1--092748: Unravelling the emission signature of a quasar ionization echo
• The Dynamics and Energetics of Remnant and Restarting RLAGN
• Joint NuSTAR and Chandra analysis of the obscured quasar in IC 2497 - Hanny's Voorwerp system
• Cooling timescale of dust tori in dying active galactic nuclei
• Detailed accretion history of the supermassive black hole in NGC 5972 over the past $\gtrsim$10${}^4$ years through the extended emission line region
• Probing the environment of high-z quasars using the proximity effect in projected quasar pairs
• AGN photoionization of gas in companion galaxies as a probe of AGN radiation in time and direction
• The sign of active galactic nucleus quenching in a merger remnant with radio jets
• Relic jet activity in "Hanny's Voorwerp" revealed by the LOFAR Two metre Sky Survey
• Do you see what I see? Exploring the consequences of luminosity limits in black hole-galaxy evolution studies
• Discovery of a strong ionized-gas outflow in an AKARI-selected Ultra-luminous Infrared Galaxy at z = 0.5
• X-ray Scattering Echoes and Ghost Halos from the Intergalactic Medium: Relation to the nature of AGN variability
• The soft X-ray counterpart of Hanny's Voorwerp near IC 2497
• NuSTAR hard X-ray data and Gemini 3D spectra reveal powerful AGN and outflow histories in two low-redshift Lyman-$\alpha$ blobs
• eROSITA Final Equatorial-Depth Survey (eFEDS): eFEDS X-ray view of WERGS Radio Galaxies selected by the Subaru/HSC and VLA/FIRST survey
• An [O III] search for extended emission around AGN with H I mapping: a distant cloud ionized by Mkn 1
• NuSTAR Non-detection of a Faint Active Galactic Nucleus in an Ultraluminous IR Galaxy with Kpc-scale Fast Wind
• Tracking galaxy evolution through low frequency radio continuum observations using SKA and Citizen-science Research using Multi-wavelength data
• Outlying H$\alpha$ emitters in SDSS IV MaNGA
• A jet-dominated model for a broad-band spectral energy distribution of the nearby low-luminosity active galactic nucleus in M94
• Reconstructing Merger Timelines Using Star Cluster Age Distributions: the Case of MCG+08-11-002
• The miniJPAS Survey: Detection of double-core Lyα morphology of two high-redshift (z>3) QSOs
• Jet-mode feedback in NGC 5972: insights from resolved MUSE, GMRT and VLA observations
• JWST's PEARLS: A z=6 quasar in a train-wreck galaxy merger system
• AGN III - primordial activity in nuclei of late-type galaxies with pseudobulges
• More evidence for extinction of activity in galaxies
• XTribe: a web-based social computation platform
• Ultrahigh energy cosmic ray nuclei from remnants of dead quasars
• Oxyster: A Circumgalactic Low-ionization Oxygen Nebula next to a Starburst Galaxy at $z\sim 1$