近日，美国康奈尔大学的Anna Y. Q. Ho与加州理工学院的WeiKang Zheng等人合作并取得一项新进展。经过不懈努力，他们发现持续数分钟的具有超新星亮度的光学耀斑。相关研究成果已于2023年11月15日在国际权威学术期刊《自然》上发表。

该研究团队报道了关于类AT2018cow瞬变AT2022tsd（“Tasmanian Devil”）后几分钟内出现的光学耀斑的观测结果。这些耀斑持续数月之久，且能量极高，据推测很可能是非热性质的，意味着它们是由近乎相对论性的流出物或喷流所产生的。通过这一观测，该研究进一步证实了在某些类似AT2018cow的瞬变中，嵌入的能量来源是一个致密物体，它可能是一个磁星，也可能是一个吸积黑洞。

据悉，近年来科学家们观测到了一些河外光学瞬变现象，这些瞬变发光持续时间极短，仅持续数天。这种短暂的持续时间表明它们与最常见的河系外发光瞬变现象（超新星）的动力机制不同，因为后者的时间尺度是几周。尤其是一些短时间的瞬变，如AT2018cow，表现出蓝色的光学颜色和明亮的无线电和X射线发射。此外，几个类似于AT2018cow的瞬变已经显现出长寿命嵌入式能源的迹象，例如X射线可变性、长时间的紫外线发射、试探性的X射线准周期振荡，以及与快速（次相对论性）无线电发射喷出物耦合的大能量。

附：英文原文

Title: Minutes-duration optical flares with supernova luminosities

Author: Ho, Anna Y. Q., Perley, Daniel A., Chen, Ping, Schulze, Steve, Dhillon, Vik, Kumar, Harsh, Suresh, Aswin, Swain, Vishwajeet, Bremer, Michael, Smartt, Stephen J., Anderson, Joseph P., Anupama, G. C., Awiphan, Supachai, Barway, Sudhanshu, Bellm, Eric C., Ben-Ami, Sagi, Bhalerao, Varun, de Boer, Thomas, Brink, Thomas G., Burruss, Rick, Chandra, Poonam, Chen, Ting-Wan, Chen, Wen-Ping, Cooke, Jeff, Coughlin, Michael W., Das, Kaustav K., Drake, Andrew J., Filippenko, Alexei V., Freeburn, James, Fremling, Christoffer, Fulton, Michael D., Gal-Yam, Avishay, Galbany, Llus, Gao, Hua, Graham, Matthew J., Gromadzki, Mariusz, Gutirrez, Claudia P., Hinds, K-Ryan, Inserra, Cosimo, A J, Nayana, Karambelkar, Viraj, Kasliwal, Mansi M., Kulkarni, Shri, Mller-Bravo, Toms E., Magnier, Eugene A., Mahabal, Ashish A., Moore, Thomas, Ngeow, Chow-Choong, Nicholl, Matt, Ofek, Eran O., Omand, Conor M. B., Onori, Francesca, Pan, Yen-Chen, Pessi, Priscila J., Petitpas, Glen, Polishook, David, Poshyachinda, Saran, Pursiainen, Miika, Riddle, Reed, Rodriguez, Antonio C., Rusholme, Ben, Segre, Enrico, Sharma, Yashvi, Smith, Ken W., Sollerman, Jesper, Srivastav, Shubham, Strotjohann, Nora Linn, Suhr, Mark

Issue&Volume: 2023-11-15

Abstract: In recent years, certain luminous extragalactic optical transients have been observed to last only a few days. Their short observed duration implies a different powering mechanism from the most common luminous extragalactic transients (supernovae), whose timescale is weeks. Some short-duration transients, most notably AT2018cow, show blue optical colours and bright radio and X-ray emission. Several AT2018cow-like transients have shown hints of a long-lived embedded energy source, such as X-ray variability, prolonged ultraviolet emission, a tentative X-ray quasiperiodic oscillation and large energies coupled to fast (but subrelativistic) radio-emitting ejecta. Here we report observations of minutes-duration optical flares in the aftermath of an AT2018cow-like transient, AT2022tsd (the ‘Tasmanian Devil’). The flares occur over a period of months, are highly energetic and are probably nonthermal, implying that they arise from a near-relativistic outflow or jet. Our observations confirm that, in some AT2018cow-like transients, the embedded energy source is a compact object, either a magnetar or an accreting black hole.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06673-6

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06673-6