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arXiv · 2111.09390

Candidate Tidal Disruption Event AT2019fdr Coincident with a High-Energy Neutrino

Abstract

The origins of the high-energy cosmic neutrino flux remain largely unknown. Recently, one high-energy neutrino was associated with a tidal disruption event (TDE). Here we present AT2019fdr, an exceptionally luminous TDE candidate, coincident with another high-energy neutrino. Our observations, including a bright dust echo and soft late-time X-ray emission, further support a TDE origin of this flare. The probability of finding two such bright events by chance is just 0.034%. We evaluate several models for neutrino production and show that AT2019fdr is capable of producing the observed high-energy neutrino, reinforcing the case for TDEs as neutrino sources.

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Simeon Reusch, Robert Stein, Marek Kowalski, Sjoert van Velzen, Anna Franckowiak, Cecilia Lunardini, Kohta Murase, Walter Winter, James C. A. Miller-Jones, Mansi M. Kasliwal, Marat Gilfanov, Simone Garrappa, Vaidehi S. Paliya, Tomas Ahumada, Shreya Anand, Cristina Barbarino, Eric C. Bellm, Valery Brinnel, Sara Buson, S. Bradley Cenko, Michael W. Coughlin, Kishalay De, Richard Dekany, Sara Frederick, Avishay Gal-Yam, Suvi Gezari, Marcello Giroletti, Matthew J. Graham, Viraj Karambelkar, Shigeo S. Kimura, Albert K. H. Kong, Erik C. Kool, Russ R. Laher, Pavel Medvedev, Jannis Necker, Jakob Nordin, Daniel A. Perley, Mickael Rigault, Ben Rusholme, Steve Schulze, Tassilo Schweyer, Leo P. Singer, Jesper Sollerman, Nora Linn Strotjohann, Rashid Sunyaev, Jakob van Santen, Richard Walters, B. Theodore Zhang, Erez Zimmerman. 2021-11-17. Candidate Tidal Disruption Event AT2019fdr Coincident with a High-Energy Neutrino. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.128.221101

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