Radio Monitoring of the Tidal Disruption Event Swift J164449.3+573451. IV. Continued Fading and Non-Relativistic Expansion

Abstract

We present continued radio and X-ray observations of the previously relativistic tidal disruption event (TDE) Swift J164449.3+573451 (\sw) extending to about 9.4 years post disruption, as part of ongoing campaigns with the Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) and the \textit{Chandra} X-ray observatory. We find that the X-ray emission has faded below detectable levels, with an upper limit of $\lesssim 3.5\times 10^{-15}$ erg cm${}^{-2}$ s${}^{-1}$ in a 100 ks observation, while the radio emission continues to be detected and steadily fade. Both are consistent with forward shock emission from a non-relativistic outflow, although we find that the radio spectral energy distribution is better fit at these late times with an electron power law index of $p\approx 3$ (as opposed to $p\approx 2.5$ at earlier times). With the revised spectral index we find ${\epsilon }_B\approx 0.01$ using the radio and X-ray data, and a density of $\approx 0.04$ cm${}^3$ at a radius of $R\approx 0.65$ pc ($R_{\mathrm{sch}}\approx 2\times 10^6$ R${}_{\odot }$) from the black hole. The energy scale of the blastwave is $\approx 10^{52}$ erg. We also report detections of \sw\ at 3 GHz from the first two epochs of the VLA Sky Survey (VLASS), and find that $\sim 10^2$ off-axis \sw-like events to $z\sim 0.5$ may be present in the VLASS data. Finally, we find that \sw\ itself will remain detectable for decades at radio frequencies, although observations at sub-GHz frequencies will become increasingly important to characterize its dynamical evolution.

Submitted to the Astrophysical Journal 10 pages, 7 figures

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• Caltech-NRAO Stripe 82 Survey (CNSS). III: The First Radio-discovered Tidal Disruption Event, CNSS J0019+00
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