An Extremely Luminous Panchromatic Outburst from the Nucleus of a Distant Galaxy
- A. J. Levan1,*,
- N. R. Tanvir2,
- S. B. Cenko3,
- D. A. Perley3,
- K. Wiersema2,
- J. S. Bloom3,
- A. S. Fruchter4,
- A. de Ugarte Postigo5,
- P. T. O’Brien2,
- N. Butler3,
- A. J. van der Horst6,
- G. Leloudas5,
- A. N. Morgan3,
- K. Misra4,
- G. C. Bower3,
- J. Farihi2,
- R. L. Tunnicliffe1,
- M. Modjaz7,
- J. M. Silverman3,
- J. Hjorth5,
- C. Thöne8,
- A. Cucchiara3,
- J. M. Castro Cerón9,
- A. J. Castro-Tirado8,
- J. A. Arnold10,
- M. Bremer11,
- J. P. Brodie10,
- T. Carroll12,
- M. C. Cooper13,
- P. A. Curran14,
- R. M. Cutri15,
- J. Ehle12,
- D. Forbes16,
- J. Fynbo5,
- J. Gorosabel8,
- J. Graham4,17,
- D. I. Hoffman15,
- S. Guziy8,
- P. Jakobsson19,
- A. Kamble20,
- T. Kerr12,
- M. M. Kasliwal18,
- C. Kouveliotou21,
- D. Kocevski10,
- N. M. Law22,
- P. E. Nugent3,23,
- E. O. Ofek18,
- D. Poznanski3,23,
- R. M. Quimby18,
- E. Rol24,
- A. J. Romanowsky10,
- R. Sánchez-Ramírez8,
- S. Schulze19,
- N. Singh10,25,
- L. van Spaandonk1,26,
- R. L. C. Starling2,
- R. G. Strom24,27,
- J. C. Tello8,
- O. Vaduvescu28,
- P. J. Wheatley1,
- R. A. M. J. Wijers24,
- J. M. Winters11,
- D. Xu29
- 1Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK.
- 2Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK.
- 3Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720–3411, USA.
- 4Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.
- 5Dark Cosmology Centre, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark.
- 6Universities Space Research Association, National Space Science and Technology Center, 320 Sparkman Drive, Huntsville, AL 35805, USA.
- 7Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory, Columbia University, New York, NY 10024, USA.
- 8Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía–Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (IAA-CSIC), Glorieta de la Astronomía s/n, E-18008 Granada, Spain.
- 9Herschel Science Operations Centre, European Space Astronomy Centre, European Space Agency (ESA), Post Office Box 78, 28691 Villanueva de la Caada, Madrid, Spain.
- 10University of California Observatories/Lick Observatory, University of California, Santa Cruz, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA.
- 11Institut de RadioAstronomie Millimétrique, 300 rue de la Piscine, Domaine Universitaire, 38406 Saint Martin d’Hères, France.
- 12Joint Astronomy center, 660 North A’ohoku Place, University Park, Hilo, HI 96720, USA.
- 13Center for Galaxy Evolution, University of California, Irvine, 4129 Frederick Reines Hall, Irvine, CA 92697, USA.
- 14Astrophysique Interactions Multi-échelles, Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique/Direction des Sciences de la Matière–CNRS, Irfu/Service d’Astrophysique, Centre de Saclay, Bâtiment 709, FR-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France.
- 15Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
- 16Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University, Hawthorn VIC 3122 Australia.
- 17Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.
- 18Cahill Center for Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
- 19Centre for Astrophysics and Cosmology, Science Institute, University of Iceland, Dunhaga 5 IS-107 Reykjavik, Iceland.
- 20Center for Gravitation and Cosmology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 1900 East Kenwood Boulevard, Milwaukee,WI 53211, USA.
- 21Space Science Office, VP62, NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center Huntsville, AL 35812, USA.
- 22Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, M5S 3H4 Ontario, Canada.
- 23Computational Cosmology Center, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
- 24Astronomical Institute, University of Amsterdam, Science Park 904, 1098 XH Amsterdam, Netherlands.
- 25Centre for Astronomy, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland.
- 26Centre for Astrophysics Research, Science and Technology Research Institute, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield AL10 9AB, UK.
- 27Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON), Postbus 2, 7990 AA Dwingeloo, Netherlands.
- 28Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes, Apartado de correos 321 E-38700, Santa Cruz de la Palma, Canary Islands, Spain.
- 29Benoziyo Center for Astrophysics, Faculty of Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 76100, Israel.
- ↵*To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: a.j.levan{at}warwick.ac.uk
Abstract
Variable x-ray and γ-ray emission is characteristic of the most extreme physical processes in the universe. We present multiwavelength observations of a unique γ-ray–selected transient detected by the Swift satellite, accompanied by bright emission across the electromagnetic spectrum, and whose properties are unlike any previously observed source. We pinpoint the event to the center of a small, star-forming galaxy at redshift z = 0.3534. Its high-energy emission has lasted much longer than any γ-ray burst, whereas its peak luminosity was ∼100 times higher than bright active galactic nuclei. The association of the outburst with the center of its host galaxy suggests that this phenomenon has its origin in a rare mechanism involving the massive black hole in the nucleus of that galaxy.
- Received for publication 18 April 2011.
- Accepted for publication 8 June 2011.
