IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v623y2023i7989d10.1038_s41586-023-06673-6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Minutes-duration optical flares with supernova luminosities

Author

Listed:
  • Anna Y. Q. Ho

    (Cornell University)

  • Daniel A. Perley

    (Liverpool John Moores University)

  • Ping Chen

    (Weizmann Institute of Science)

  • Steve Schulze

    (Stockholm University, Albanova University Center)

  • Vik Dhillon

    (University of Sheffield
    Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias)

  • Harsh Kumar

    (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay)

  • Aswin Suresh

    (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay)

  • Vishwajeet Swain

    (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay)

  • Michael Bremer

    (Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique (IRAM))

  • Stephen J. Smartt

    (University of Oxford
    Queen’s University Belfast)

  • Joseph P. Anderson

    (European Southern Observatory
    Millennium Institute of Astrophysics (MAS))

  • G. C. Anupama

    (Indian Institute of Astrophysics)

  • Supachai Awiphan

    (National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand)

  • Sudhanshu Barway

    (Indian Institute of Astrophysics)

  • Eric C. Bellm

    (University of Washington)

  • Sagi Ben-Ami

    (Weizmann Institute of Science)

  • Varun Bhalerao

    (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay)

  • Thomas Boer

    (University of Hawai‘i)

  • Thomas G. Brink

    (University of California, Berkeley)

  • Rick Burruss

    (California Institute of Technology)

  • Poonam Chandra

    (National Radio Astronomy Observatory)

  • Ting-Wan Chen

    (Technische Universität München
    Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik)

  • Wen-Ping Chen

    (National Central University)

  • Jeff Cooke

    (Swinburne University of Technology
    Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav)
    Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D))

  • Michael W. Coughlin

    (University of Minnesota)

  • Kaustav K. Das

    (California Institute of Technology)

  • Andrew J. Drake

    (California Institute of Technology)

  • Alexei V. Filippenko

    (University of California, Berkeley)

  • James Freeburn

    (Swinburne University of Technology
    Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav))

  • Christoffer Fremling

    (California Institute of Technology
    California Institute of Technology)

  • Michael D. Fulton

    (Queen’s University Belfast)

  • Avishay Gal-Yam

    (Weizmann Institute of Science)

  • Lluís Galbany

    (Institute of Space Sciences (ICE-CSIC)
    Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya (IEEC))

  • Hua Gao

    (University of Hawai‘i)

  • Matthew J. Graham

    (California Institute of Technology)

  • Mariusz Gromadzki

    (University of Warsaw)

  • Claudia P. Gutiérrez

    (Institute of Space Sciences (ICE-CSIC)
    Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya (IEEC))

  • K-Ryan Hinds

    (Liverpool John Moores University)

  • Cosimo Inserra

    (Cardiff University)

  • Nayana A J

    (Indian Institute of Astrophysics)

  • Viraj Karambelkar

    (California Institute of Technology)

  • Mansi M. Kasliwal

    (California Institute of Technology)

  • Shri Kulkarni

    (California Institute of Technology)

  • Tomás E. Müller-Bravo

    (Institute of Space Sciences (ICE-CSIC)
    Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya (IEEC))

  • Eugene A. Magnier

    (University of Hawai‘i)

  • Ashish A. Mahabal

    (California Institute of Technology
    California Institute of Technology)

  • Thomas Moore

    (Queen’s University Belfast)

  • Chow-Choong Ngeow

    (National Central University)

  • Matt Nicholl

    (Queen’s University Belfast)

  • Eran O. Ofek

    (Weizmann Institute of Science)

  • Conor M. B. Omand

    (Stockholm University, Albanova University Center)

  • Francesca Onori

    (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico d’Abruzzo)

  • Yen-Chen Pan

    (National Central University)

  • Priscila J. Pessi

    (Stockholm University, Albanova University Center)

  • Glen Petitpas

    (Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)

  • David Polishook

    (Weizmann Institute of Science)

  • Saran Poshyachinda

    (National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand)

  • Miika Pursiainen

    (Technical University of Denmark)

  • Reed Riddle

    (California Institute of Technology)

  • Antonio C. Rodriguez

    (California Institute of Technology)

  • Ben Rusholme

    (California Institute of Technology)

  • Enrico Segre

    (Weizmann Institute of Science)

  • Yashvi Sharma

    (California Institute of Technology)

  • Ken W. Smith

    (Queen’s University Belfast)

  • Jesper Sollerman

    (Stockholm University, Albanova University Center)

  • Shubham Srivastav

    (Queen’s University Belfast)

  • Nora Linn Strotjohann

    (Weizmann Institute of Science)

  • Mark Suhr

    (Swinburne University of Technology
    Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D))

  • Dmitry Svinkin

    (Ioffe Institute)

  • Yanan Wang

    (Chinese Academy of Sciences
    University of Southampton)

  • Philip Wiseman

    (University of Southampton)

  • Avery Wold

    (California Institute of Technology)

  • Sheng Yang

    (Henan Academy of Sciences)

  • Yi Yang

    (University of California, Berkeley)

  • Yuhan Yao

    (California Institute of Technology)

  • David R. Young

    (Queen’s University Belfast)

  • WeiKang Zheng

    (University of California, Berkeley)

Abstract

In recent years, certain luminous extragalactic optical transients have been observed to last only a few days1. Their short observed duration implies a different powering mechanism from the most common luminous extragalactic transients (supernovae), whose timescale is weeks2. Some short-duration transients, most notably AT2018cow (ref. 3), show blue optical colours and bright radio and X-ray emission4. Several AT2018cow-like transients have shown hints of a long-lived embedded energy source5, such as X-ray variability6,7, prolonged ultraviolet emission8, a tentative X-ray quasiperiodic oscillation9,10 and large energies coupled to fast (but subrelativistic) radio-emitting ejecta11,12. Here we report observations of minutes-duration optical flares in the aftermath of an AT2018cow-like transient, AT2022tsd (the ‘Tasmanian Devil’). The flares occur over a period of months, are highly energetic and are probably nonthermal, implying that they arise from a near-relativistic outflow or jet. Our observations confirm that, in some AT2018cow-like transients, the embedded energy source is a compact object, either a magnetar or an accreting black hole.

Suggested Citation

  • Anna Y. Q. Ho & Daniel A. Perley & Ping Chen & Steve Schulze & Vik Dhillon & Harsh Kumar & Aswin Suresh & Vishwajeet Swain & Michael Bremer & Stephen J. Smartt & Joseph P. Anderson & G. C. Anupama & S, 2023. "Minutes-duration optical flares with supernova luminosities," Nature, Nature, vol. 623(7989), pages 927-931, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:623:y:2023:i:7989:d:10.1038_s41586-023-06673-6
    DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06673-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06673-6
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41586-023-06673-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:623:y:2023:i:7989:d:10.1038_s41586-023-06673-6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.