Discovery of a Mid-infrared Echo from the TDE candidate in the nucleus of ULIRG F01004-2237

Liming Dou; Tinggui Wang; Lin Yan; Ning Jiang; Chenwei Yang; Roc M. Cutri; Amy Mainzer; Bo Peng

doi:10.3847/2041-8213/aa7130

paper

Discovery of a Mid-infrared Echo from the TDE candidate in the nucleus of ULIRG F01004-2237

arXiv:1703.05773 · doi:10.3847/2041-8213/aa7130

Abstract

We present the mid-infrared (MIR) light curves (LCs) of a tidal disruption event (TDE) candidate in the center of a nearby ultraluminous infrared galaxy (ULIRG) F01004-2237 using archival {\it WISE} and {\it NEOWISE} data from 2010 to 2016. At the peak of the optical flare, F01004-2237 was IR quiescent. About three years later, its MIR fluxes have shown a steady increase, rising by 1.34 and 1.04 mag in $3.4$ and $4.6 μ$ m up to the end of 2016. The host-subtracted MIR peak luminosity is $2 - 3 \times 1 0^{44}$ \,erg\,s $^{- 1}$ . We interpret the MIR LCs as an infrared echo, i.e. dust reprocessed emission of the optical flare. Fitting the MIR LCs using our dust model, we infer a dust torus of the size of a few parsecs at some inclined angle. The derived dust temperatures range from $590 - 850$ \,K, and the warm dust mass is $\sim 7 M_{⊙}$ . Such a large mass implies that the dust cannot be newly formed. We also derive the UV luminosity of $4 - 11 \times 1 0^{44}$ \,erg\,s $^{- 1}$ . The inferred total IR energy is $1 - 2 \times 1 0^{52}$ \,erg, suggesting a large dust covering factor. Finally, our dust model suggests that the long tail of the optical flare could be due to dust scattering.

Discovery of a Mid-infrared Echo from the TDE candidate in the nucleus of ULIRG F01004-2237

Abstract

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