The Astrophysical Journal Letters (Jan 2023)
Tidal Disruption Event Demographics with the Zwicky Transient Facility: Volumetric Rates, Luminosity Function, and Implications for the Local Black Hole Mass Function
- Yuhan Yao,
- Vikram Ravi,
- Suvi Gezari,
- Sjoert van Velzen,
- Wenbin Lu,
- Steve Schulze,
- Jean J. Somalwar,
- S. R. Kulkarni,
- Erica Hammerstein,
- Matt Nicholl,
- Matthew J. Graham,
- Daniel A. Perley,
- S. Bradley Cenko,
- Robert Stein,
- Angelo Ricarte,
- Urmila Chadayammuri,
- Eliot Quataert,
- Eric C. Bellm,
- Joshua S. Bloom,
- Richard Dekany,
- Andrew J. Drake,
- Steven L. Groom,
- Ashish A. Mahabal,
- Thomas A. Prince,
- Reed Riddle,
- Ben Rusholme,
- Yashvi Sharma,
- Jesper Sollerman,
- Lin Yan
Affiliations
- Yuhan Yao
- ORCiD
- Cahill Center for Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology , MC 249-17, 1200 E California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA ; [email protected]; Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science , 468 Donner Lab, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; Department of Astronomy, University of California , Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
- Vikram Ravi
- ORCiD
- Cahill Center for Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology , MC 249-17, 1200 E California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA ; [email protected]
- Suvi Gezari
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA; Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University , Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Sjoert van Velzen
- ORCiD
- Leiden Observatory, Leiden University , Postbus 9513, 2300 RA, Leiden, The Netherlands
- Wenbin Lu
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, University of California , Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
- Steve Schulze
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, The Oskar Klein Centre, Stockholm University , AlbaNova, SE-10691 Stockholm, Sweden
- Jean J. Somalwar
- ORCiD
- Cahill Center for Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology , MC 249-17, 1200 E California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA ; [email protected]
- S. R. Kulkarni
- ORCiD
- Cahill Center for Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology , MC 249-17, 1200 E California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA ; [email protected]
- Erica Hammerstein
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland , College Park, MD 20742, USA
- Matt Nicholl
- ORCiD
- Birmingham Institute for Gravitational Wave Astronomy and School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham , Birmingham B15 2TT, UK; Astrophysics Research Centre, School of Mathematics and Physics, Queens University Belfast , Belfast BT7 1NN, UK
- Matthew J. Graham
- ORCiD
- Cahill Center for Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology , MC 249-17, 1200 E California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA ; [email protected]
- Daniel A. Perley
- ORCiD
- Astrophysics Research Institute, Liverpool John Moores University , IC2, Liverpool Science Park, 146 Brownlow Hill, Liverpool L3 5RF, UK
- S. Bradley Cenko
- ORCiD
- Astrophysics Science Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center , Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA; Joint Space-Science Institute, University of Maryland , College Park, MD 20742, USA
- Robert Stein
- ORCiD
- Cahill Center for Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology , MC 249-17, 1200 E California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA ; [email protected]
- Angelo Ricarte
- ORCiD
- Center for Astrophysics ∣ Harvard & Smithsonian , 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA; Black Hole Initiative at Harvard University , 20 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Urmila Chadayammuri
- Center for Astrophysics ∣ Harvard & Smithsonian , 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Eliot Quataert
- ORCiD
- Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University , Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
- Eric C. Bellm
- ORCiD
- DIRAC Institute, Department of Astronomy, University of Washington , 3910 15th Avenue NE, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
- Joshua S. Bloom
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, University of California , Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
- Richard Dekany
- ORCiD
- Caltech Optical Observatories, California Institute of Technology , Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
- Andrew J. Drake
- ORCiD
- Cahill Center for Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology , MC 249-17, 1200 E California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA ; [email protected]
- Steven L. Groom
- ORCiD
- IPAC, California Institute of Technology , 1200 E. California Blvd, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
- Ashish A. Mahabal
- ORCiD
- Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy, California Institute of Technology , Pasadena, CA 91125, USA; Center for Data Driven Discovery, California Institute of Technology , Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
- Thomas A. Prince
- ORCiD
- Cahill Center for Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology , MC 249-17, 1200 E California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA ; [email protected]
- Reed Riddle
- ORCiD
- Caltech Optical Observatories, California Institute of Technology , Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
- Ben Rusholme
- ORCiD
- IPAC, California Institute of Technology , 1200 E. California Blvd, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
- Yashvi Sharma
- ORCiD
- Cahill Center for Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology , MC 249-17, 1200 E California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA ; [email protected]
- Jesper Sollerman
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, The Oskar Klein Centre, Stockholm University , AlbaNova, SE-10691 Stockholm, Sweden
- Lin Yan
- ORCiD
- Cahill Center for Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology , MC 249-17, 1200 E California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA ; [email protected]
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/acf216
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 955,
no. 1
p. L6
Abstract
We conduct a systematic tidal disruption event (TDE) demographics analysis using the largest sample of optically selected TDEs. A flux-limited, spectroscopically complete sample of 33 TDEs is constructed using the Zwicky Transient Facility over 3 yr (from 2018 October to 2021 September). We infer the black hole (BH) mass ( M _BH ) with host galaxy scaling relations, showing that the sample M _BH ranges from 10 ^5.1 M _⊙ to 10 ^8.2 M _⊙ . We developed a survey efficiency corrected maximum volume method to infer the rates. The rest-frame g -band luminosity function can be well described by a broken power law of $\phi ({L}_{g})\propto {\left[{\left({L}_{g}/{L}_{\mathrm{bk}}\right)}^{0.3}+{\left({L}_{g}/{L}_{\mathrm{bk}}\right)}^{2.6}\right]}^{-1}$ , with L _bk = 10 ^43.1 erg s ^−1 . In the BH mass regime of 10 ^5.3 ≲ ( M _BH / M _⊙ ) ≲ 10 ^7.3 , the TDE mass function follows $\phi ({M}_{\mathrm{BH}})\propto {M}_{\mathrm{BH}}^{-0.25}$ , which favors a flat local BH mass function ( ${{dn}}_{\mathrm{BH}}/d\mathrm{log}{M}_{\mathrm{BH}}\approx \mathrm{constant}$ ). We confirm the significant rate suppression at the high-mass end ( M _BH ≳ 10 ^7.5 M _⊙ ), which is consistent with theoretical predictions considering direct capture of hydrogen-burning stars by the event horizon. At a host galaxy mass of M _gal ∼ 10 ^10 M _⊙ , the average optical TDE rate is ≈3.2 × 10 ^−5 galaxy ^−1 yr ^−1 . We constrain the optical TDE rate to be [3.7, 7.4, and 1.6] × 10 ^−5 galaxy ^−1 yr ^−1 in galaxies with red, green, and blue colors.
Keywords
- Tidal disruption
- Time domain astronomy
- Black holes
- Galaxy nuclei
- Supermassive black holes
- Luminosity function
