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  • Mid-infrared Outbursts in Nearby Galaxies: Nuclear Obscuration and Connections to Hidden Tidal Disruption Events and Changing-look Active Galactic Nuclei
Title: Mid-infrared Outbursts in Nearby Galaxies: Nuclear Obscuration and Connections to Hidden Tidal Disruption Events and Changing-look Active Galactic Nuclei
Abstract We study the properties of galaxies hosting mid-infrared outbursts in the context of a catalog of 500,000 galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We find that nuclear obscuration, as inferred by the surrounding dust mass, does not correlate with host galaxy type, stellar properties (e.g., total mass and mean age), or with the extinction of the host galaxy as estimated by the Balmer decrement. This implies that nuclear obscuration may not be able to explain any overrepresentation of tidal disruption events in particular host galaxies. We identify a region in the galaxy catalog parameter space that contains all unobscured tidal disruption events but only harbors ≲11% of the mid-infrared outburst hosts. We find that mid-infrared outburst hosts appear more centrally concentrated and have higher galaxy Sérsic indices than galaxies hosting active galactic nuclei (AGNs) selected using the Baldwin–Phillips–Terlevich classification. We thus conclude that the majority of mid-infrared outbursts are not hidden tidal disruption events but are instead consistent with being obscured AGN that are highly variable, such as changing-look AGN.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2150255 2206164 2307710
PAR ID:
10533881
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Publisher / Repository:
IOP Publishing
Date Published:
Journal Name:
The Astrophysical Journal Letters
Volume:
959
Issue:
2
ISSN:
2041-8205
Page Range / eLocation ID:
L19
Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
.
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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