A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
The Jetted Tidal Disruption Event AT 2022cmc: Investigating Connections to the Optical Tidal Disruption Event Population and Spectral Subclasses through Late-time Follow-up
Authors: Hammerstein, Erica; Cenko, S. Bradley; Andreoni, Igor; Charalampopoulos, Panos; Chornock, Ryan; Margutti, Raffaella; O'connor, Brendan; Schulze, Steve; Sollerman, Jesper; Barway, Sudhanshu; Bhalerao, Varun; Anupama, G. C.; Kumar, Harsh; Marini, Ester; Paris, Diego; Perley, Daniel A.; Rossi, Andrea; Yao, Yuhan
Publisher: Institute of Physics Publishing
Publication year: 2026
Journal: Astrophysical Journal
Article number: 143
Volume: 996
Issue: 2
ISSN: 0004-637X
eISSN: 1538-4357
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ae1838
Publication's open availability at the time of reporting: Open Access
Publication channel's open availability : Open Access publication channel
Web address : https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ae1838
Self-archived copy’s web address: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/515502984
Self-archived copy's licence: CC BY
Self-archived copy's version: Publisher`s PDF
AT 2022cmc is the first on-axis jetted tidal disruption event (TDE) to be discovered at optical wavelengths. The optically bright nature of AT 2022cmc presents an unprecedented opportunity to place this jetted TDE in the context of the larger optically selected thermal TDE population and explore potential connections to optical TDE subclasses, particularly the class of luminous TDEs that lack optical spectral features. In this work, we present late-time optical observations of AT 2022cmc, both imaging and spectroscopy, that extend the optical dataset to ∼160 days from the first detection in the observed frame. The light curve clearly evolves from red to blue, which we interpret as a transition from a nonthermally dominated spectral energy distribution (SED) to thermally dominated SED. By accounting for the nonthermal emission evident in the optical SED at early times, we extract the properties of the thermal emission and compare to a sample of optically selected thermal TDEs. We find that the properties of AT 2022cmc are consistent with previous correlations found for the evolution and properties of thermal TDEs, with the thermal properties of AT 2022cmc aligning with the class of featureless and luminous TDEs. The confirmation of this similarity motivates the importance of prompt and multiwavelength follow-up of featureless and luminous TDEs in order to further explore the connection they have with jetted TDEs.
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We thank the reviewer for the helpful comments toward improving this manuscript. Portions of this work served as a chapter in E.H.’s dissertation. This material is based upon work supported by NASA under award No. 80GSFC21M0002. The TReX team at UC Berkeley is partially funded by the National Science Foundation under award No. AST-2224255. A.R. acknowledges INAF project Supporto Arizona & Italia.
Based on observations made with the Nordic Optical Telescope, owned in collaboration by the University of Turku and Aarhus University, and operated jointly by Aarhus University, the University of Turku, and the University of Oslo, representing Denmark, Finland, and Norway, the University of Iceland and Stockholm University at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, La Palma, Spain, of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias. The GROWTH India Telescope (GIT) is a 70 cm telescope with a 0
7 field of view set up by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) and the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB) with funding from Indo-US Science and Technology Forum and the Science and Engineering Research Board, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. It is located at the Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO, Hanle). We acknowledge funding by the IITB alumni batch of 1994, which partially supports the operation of the telescope. The LBT is an international collaboration of the University of Arizona, Italy (INAF: Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica), Germany (LBTB: LBT Beteiligungsgesellschaft), The Ohio State University, representing also the University of Minnesota, the University of Virginia, and the University of Notre Dame.
