Numerical Studies on the Radio Afterglows in TDE: Forward Shock

Abstract

Recent long-term radio monitoring of tidal disruption events (TDEs) suggests that radio afterglows are common. Most studies argue that these afterglows may arise from forward shocks (FS) produced by the interaction between the TDE outflow and the hot, diffuse circumnuclear medium (CNM). Current theoretical models do not model the evolution of relativistic electrons in space, which introduces uncertainties. Here we conducted hydrodynamic simulations to study the spatial evolution of relativistic electrons, and calculated the synchrotron spectra via radiative transfer. We focus on the FS scenario with non-relativistic outflows, and various parameters of the outflow and CNM are explored. A moderate outflow with kinetic energy of several $10^{50}$ erg in a Galactic center - like CNM can produce mJy-level radio afterglows at a distance of 100 Mpc. The self-absorption frequency exhibits a slow decline at early times and a rapid decrease at late times. We derived the temporal evolution of the high-frequency radio flux, revealing its characteristic rise and decline pattern. We also find that: (1) the radio spectra for narrow outflows are clearly anisotropic along different sight lines; (2) the FS parameters inferred from radio spectra using conventional analytical formulas deviate significantly from those in simulations, in which the inferred shock radii are half of those from simulations, and the inferred energies are an order of magnitude lower.

Accepted for publication in ApJ. File size: 17 MB

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