Minutes-duration optical flares with supernova luminosities

Minutes-duration optical flares with supernova luminosities

In recent years, certain luminous extragalactic optical transients have been observed to last only a few days1. Their short observed duration implies a different powering mechanism from the most common luminous extragalactic transients (supernovae), whose timescale is weeks2. Some short-duration transients, most notably AT2018cow (ref. 3), show blue optical colours and bright radio and X-ray emission4. Several AT2018cow-like transients have shown hints of a long-lived embedded energy source5, such as X-ray variability6,7, prolonged ultraviolet emission8, a tentative X-ray quasiperiodic oscillation9,10 and large energies coupled to fast (but subrelativistic) radio-emitting ejecta11,12. 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. Observations of optical flares from AT2022tsd (the ‘Tasmanian Devil’) show that they have durations on the timescale of minutes, occur over a period of months, are highly energetic, are probably nonthermal and have supernova luminosities.

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South Korea , Compton , Illinois , United States , Willingale , Essex , United Kingdom , Chicago , Cambridge , Cambridgeshire , Kuin , Ch Ungch Ong Bukto , Thailand , India , Thai , Han , Ugarte Postigo , Rivera Sandoval , International Astronomical Union , Astrophysics Source Code Library , Young , Gildas Team , Ms High Energy Astrophysics Cambridge Univ , Thai National Telescope , Zwicky Transient Facility Bright , Spectroscopic Survey Of Transient Objects , Sloan Digital Sky , Fender , Astronomical Society Of The Pacific , Astronomical Data Analysis Software , Galactic Center , Large Array Survey Telescope , Dark Energy , Line Data Analysis Software , Discovery Report , Name Server Discovery Report , Automatic Learning , Rapid Classification , Name Server Astronote , Black Hole , Transient Name Server Astronote , Sloan Digital Sky Survey , Open Source Softw , Astronomical Union , Radiative Processes , Zwicky Transient , Panoramic Views , Galaxy Formation , Astronomical Society , Space Sci , Wind Catalog , Gamma Ray Bursts , Gamma Ray Burst Supernova , High Energy Astrophysics , Chicago Press , Isaac Newton Telescope , Palomar Transient Factory , Circular Service , Zwicky Transient Facility , Liverpool Telescope , Thai National , Inamori Magellan Areal Camera , Object Spectrograph , Gaia Early Data Release , Low Resolution Imaging Spectrometer , Information Handling , Expanded Very Large Array , Grenoble Image , Line Data Analysis , Swiftx Ray ,

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