Journal article
The ultraviolet spectroscopic evolution of the low-luminosity tidal disruption event iPTF16fnl
JS Brown, CS Kochanek, TWS Holoien, KZ Stanek, K Auchettl, BJ Shappee, JL Prieto, N Morrell, E Falco, J Strader, L Chomiuk, R Post, S Villanueva, S Mathur, S Dong, P Chen, S Bose
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society | OXFORD UNIV PRESS | Published : 2018
Abstract
We present the ultraviolet (UV) spectroscopic evolution of a tidal disruption event (TDE) for the first time. After the discovery of the nearby TDE iPTF16fnl, we obtained a series of observations with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) onboard the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The dominant emission features closely resemble those seen in the UV spectra of the TDE ASASSN-14li and are also similar to those of N-rich quasars. There is evolution in the shape and central wavelength of the dominant emission features over the course of our observations, such that at early times the lines tend to be broad and redshifted, while at later times they are narrower and peak near the wavelengt..
View full abstractGrants
Awarded by University of Minnesota
Funding Acknowledgements
JSB, KZS and CSK are supported by NSF grants AST-1515876 and AST-1515927.TW-SH is supported by the DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellowship, grant number DE-FG02-97ER25308.BJS is supported by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grant HF-51348.001 awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS 5-26555.Support for JLP is provided in part by FONDECYT through the grant 1151445 and by the Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism's Millennium Science Initiative through grant IC120009, awarded to The Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, MAS.SV.Jr is supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant No. DGE-1343012.Based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555. These observations are associated with program #GO-14781.This paper used data obtained with the MODS spectrographs built with funding from NSF grant AST-9987045 and the NSF Telescope System Instrumentation Program (TSIP) with additional funds from the Ohio Board of Regents and the Ohio State University Office of Research.This research has made use of the XRT Data Analysis Software (XRTDAS) developed under the responsibility of the ASI Science Data Center (ASDC), Italy. At Penn State the NASA Swift program is supported through contract NAS5-00136.This paper uses data products produced by the OIR Telescope Data Center, supported by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.Observations made with the NASA Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) were used in the analyses presented in this manuscript. Some of the data presented in this paper were obtained from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST). STScI is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555. Support for MAST for non-HST data is provided by the NASA Office of Space Science via grant NNX13AC07G and by other grants and contracts.Funding for SDSS-III has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. The SDSS-III web site is http://www.sdss3.org/.This publication makes use of data products from the Two Micron All Sky Survey, which is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center/California Institute of Technology, funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation.This publication makes use of data products from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, which is a joint project of the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, funded by NASA.