Mergerburst Transients of Brown Dwarfs with Exoplanets

TL;DR

This paper investigates optical transient events caused by planets being tidally destroyed and accreted by brown dwarfs, predicting their properties and potential for future detection.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of BD-planet mergerbursts, detailing their light curve characteristics and observational signatures, a novel scenario in transient astrophysics.

Findings

Mergerbursts have durations of several days.

Light curves resemble intermediate luminosity optical transients.

Events are expected to be detectable with current sky surveys.

Abstract

We explore the properties of an optical transient event formed by the destruction of a planet by a brown dwarf (BD) -- a BD-planet mergerburst. When a massive planet approaches a BD towards a merging process it will be tidally destroyed and will form an accretion disk around the BD. The viscosity in the disk sets the characteristic time for the event -- several days. We suggest that BD-planet mergerburst events have light curves resembling those of other intermediate luminosity optical transient (ILOT) events, such as V838 Mon, but at shorter timescales and lower luminosities. With the high percentage coverage of the sky, we expect that such events will be detected in the near future.