Day-timescale variability in the radio light curve of the Tidal Disruption Event AT2022cmc: confirmation of a highly relativistic outflow

TL;DR

This paper reports the detection of day-timescale variability in the radio light curve of TDE AT2022cmc, providing conclusive evidence of a highly relativistic jet through brightness temperature and Doppler factor measurements.

Contribution

It presents the first direct evidence that radio emission in some TDEs originates from relativistic jets, confirmed by brightness temperature and variability analysis.

Findings

Brightness temperature of 2x10^15 K suggests relativistic beaming.

Jet has a Doppler factor of at least 16 and Lorentz factor of at least 8.

Radio evolution of AT2022cmc closely resembles that of Swift J1644.

Abstract

Tidal disruption events (TDEs) are transient, multi-wavelength events in which a star is ripped apart by a supermassive black hole. Observations show that in a small fraction of TDEs, a short-lived, synchrotron emitting jet is produced. We observed the newly discovered TDE AT2022cmc with a slew of radio facilities over the first 100 days after its discovery. The light curve from the AMI-LA radio interferometer shows day-timescale variability which we attribute to a high brightness temperature emitting region as opposed to scintillation. We measure a brightness temperature of 2x10^15 K, which is unphysical for synchrotron radiation. We suggest that the measured high brightness temperature is a result of relativistic beaming caused by a jet being launched at velocities close to the speed of light along our line of sight. We infer from day-timescale variability that the jet associated with AT2022cmc has a relativistic Doppler factor of at least 16, which corresponds to a bulk Lorentz factor of at least 8 if we are observing the jet directly on axis. Such an inference is the first conclusive evidence that the radio emission observed from some TDEs is from relativistic jets because it does not rely on an outflow model. We also compare the first 100 days of radio evolution of AT2022cmc with that of the previous bright relativistic TDE, Swift J1644, and find a remarkable similarity in their evolution.