Chenwei Yang

EXTREME CORONAL LINE EMITTERS: TIDAL DISRUPTION OF STARS BY MASSIVE BLACK HOLES IN GALACTIC NUCLEI?

Tidal disruption of stars by supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies is expected to produce unique emission-line signatures, which have not yet been explored adequately. Here we report the discovery of extremely strong coronal lines from [Fe X] up to [Fe XIV] in a sample of seven galaxies (including two recently reported cases), which we interpret as such signatures. This is the first systematic search for objects of this kind, by making use of the immense database of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The galaxies, which are non-active as evidenced by the narrow line ratios, show broad emission lines of complex profiles in more than half of the sample. Both the high-ionization coronal lines and the broad lines are fading on timescales of years in objects observed with spectroscopic follow-ups, suggesting their transient nature. Variations of inferred non-stellar continua, which have absolute magnitudes of at least -16 to -18 mag in the g band, are also detected in more than half of the sample. The coronal line emitters reside in sub-L-* disk galaxies (-21.3< M-i < -18.5) with small stellar velocity dispersions. The sample seems to form two distinct types based on the presence or absence of the [Fe VII] lines, with the latter having relatively low luminosities of [O III], [Fe XI], and the host galaxies. These characteristics can most naturally be understood in the context of transient accretion onto intermediate-mass black holes at galactic centers following tidal disruption of stars in a gas-rich environment. We estimate the incidence of such events to be around 10(-5) yr(-1) for a galaxy with -21.3 < M-i < -18.5.

EVIDENCE FOR PHOTOIONIZATION-DRIVEN BROAD ABSORPTION LINE VARIABILITY

We present a qualitative analysis of the variability of quasar broad absorption lines using the large multi-epoch spectroscopic dataset of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 10. We confirm that variations of absorption lines are highly coordinated among different components of the same ion or the same absorption component of different ions for C IV, Si IV and N V. Furthermore, we show that the equivalent widths of the lines decrease or increase statistically when the continuum brightens or dims. This is further supported by the synchronized variations of emission and absorption line equivalent width, when the well established intrinsic Baldwin effect for emission lines is taken into account. We find that the emergence of an absorption component is usually accompanying with dimming of the continuum while the disappearance of an absorption line component with brightening of the continuum. This suggests that the emergence or disappearance of a C IV absorption component is only the extreme case, when the ionic column density is very sensitive to continuum variations or the continuum variability amplitude is larger. These results support the idea that absorption line variability is driven mainly by changes in the gas ionization in response to continuum variations, that the line-absorbing gas is highly ionized, and in some extreme cases, too highly ionized to be detected in UV absorption lines. Due to uncertainties in the spectroscopic flux calibration, we cannot quantify the fraction of quasars with asynchronized continuum and absorption line variations.

UNSHIFTED METASTABLE He I* MINI-BROAD ABSORPTION LINE SYSTEM IN THE NARROW-LINE TYPE 1 QUASAR SDSS J080248.18+551328.9

We report the identification of an unusual absorption-line system in the quasar SDSS J080248.18+551328.9 and present a detailed study of the system, incorporating follow-up optical and near-IR spectroscopy. A few tens of absorption lines are detected, including He I*, Fe II*, and Ni II*, which arise from metastable or excited levels, as well as resonant lines in Mg I, Mg II, Fe II, MnII, and Ca II. All of the isolated absorption lines show the same profile of width Delta v similar to 1500 km s(-1) centered at a common redshift as that of the quasar emission lines, such as [O II], [S II], and hydrogen Paschen and Balmer series. With narrow Balmer lines, strong optical Fe II multiplets, and weak [O III] doublets, its emission-line spectrum is typical for that of a narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy (NLS1). We have derived reliable measurements of the gas-phase column densities of the absorbing ions/levels. Photoionization modeling indicates that the absorber has a density of n(H) similar to (1.0-2.5) x 10(5) cm(-3) and a column density of N-H similar to (1.0-3.2) x 10(21) cm(-2) and is located at R similar to 100-250 pc from the central supermassive black hole. The location of the absorber, the symmetric profile of the absorption lines, and the coincidence of the absorption- and emission-line centroid jointly suggest that the absorption gas originates from the host galaxy and is plausibly accelerated by stellar processes, such as stellar winds and/or supernova explosions. The implications for the detection of such a peculiar absorption-line system in an NLS1 are discussed in the context of coevolution between supermassive black hole growth and host galaxy buildup.

A Comprehensive Study of Broad Absorption Line Quasars: I. Prevalence of HeI* Absorption Line Multiplets in Low-Ionization Objects

Neutral Helium multiplets, HeI*3189,3889,10830 are very useful diagnostics to the geometry and physical conditions of the absorbing gas in quasars. So far only a handful of HeI* detections have been reported. Using a newly developed method, we detected HeI*3889 absorption line in 101 sources of a well-defined sample of 285 MgII BAL quasars selected from the SDSS DR5. This has increased the number of HeI* BAL quasars by more than one order of magnitude. We further detected HeI*3189 in 50% (52/101) quasars in the sample. The detection fraction of HeI* BALs in MgII BAL quasars is about 35% as a whole, and increases dramatically with increasing spectral signal-to-noise ratios, from 18% at S/N = 35. This suggests that HeI* BALs could be detected in most MgII LoBAL quasars, provided spectra S/N is high enough. Such a surprisingly high HeI* BAL fraction is actually predicted from photo-ionization calculations based on a simple BAL model. The result indicates that HeI* absorption lines can be used to search for BAL quasars at low-z, which cannot be identified by ground-based optical spectroscopic survey with commonly seen UV absorption lines. Using HeI*3889, we discovered 19 BAL quasars at z<0.3 from available SDSS spectral database. The fraction of HeI* BAL quasars is similar to that of LoBAL objects.

THE WISE DETECTION OF AN INFRARED ECHO IN TIDAL DISRUPTION EVENT ASASSN-14li

We report the detection of a significant infrared variability of the nearest tidal disruption event (TDE) ASASSN-14li using Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer} and newly released Near-Earth Object WISE Reactivation} data. In comparison with the quiescent state, the infrared flux is brightened by 0.12 and 0.16 magnitude in the W1 (

Modelling the multi-wavelength emission of flat-spectrum radio quasar 3C 279

3.4\mu

Photoionization-driven Absorption-line Variability in Balmer Absorption Line Quasar LBQS 1206+1052

m) and W2 (

The Carbon and Nitrogen Abundance Ratio in the Broad Line Region of Tidal Disruption Events

4.6\mu

Mid-infrared Flare of TDE Candidate PS16dtm: Dust Echo and Implications for the Spectral Evolution

m) bands at 36 days after the optical discovery (or

Variation of Ionizing Continuum: The Main Driver of Broad Absorption Line Variability

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