Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transients and Type Ibn/Icn SNe from Wolf-Rayet/Black Hole Mergers

Abstract

Progenitor models for the "luminous" subclass of Fast Blue Optical Transients (LFBOTs; prototype: AT2018cow) are challenged to simultaneously explain all of their observed properties: fast optical rise times < days; peak luminosities >1e44 erg/s; low yields <0.1 Msun of 56Ni; aspherical ejecta with a wide velocity range (<3000 km/s to > 0.1-0.5 c with increasing polar latitude); presence of hydrogen-depleted-but-not-free dense circumstellar material (CSM) on radial scales from ~1e14 cm to ~3e16 cm; embedded variable source of non-thermal X-ray/gamma-rays, suggestive of a compact object. We show that all of these properties are consistent with the tidal disruption and hyper-accretion of a Wolf-Rayet (WR) star by a black hole (BH) or neutron star (NS) binary companion. In contrast with related previous models, the merger occurs with a long delay (>~ 100 years) following the common envelope (CE) event responsible for birthing the binary, as a result of gradual angular momentum loss to a relic circumbinary disk. Disk-wind outflows from the merger-generated accretion flow generate the 56Ni-poor aspherical ejecta with the requisite velocity range. The optical light curve is powered primarily by reprocessing X-rays from the inner accretion flow/jet, though CSM shock interaction also contributes. Primary CSM sources include mass-loss from WR star (e.g., from the L2 point) during the earliest stages of the merger (~<1e14 cm) and the relic CE disk and its photoevaporation-driven wind (>~ 1e16 cm). Longer delayed mergers may instead give rise to supernovae Type Ibn/Icn (depending on the WR evolutionary state), potentially connecting these transient classes with LFBOTs.