The exceptional properties of a handful of extremely long-lived, Swift-BATdetected flares have marked them as a new class of event, likely, but notuniquely caused by the creation of a relativistic jet during the tidaldisruption of star. Here we propose to obtain a further observation of by farthe best studied event, Swift J1644+57, 6 years after the initial outburst.Swift J1644+57 displayed a sharp cut-off in its X-ray emission approximately 500days post trigger and has since plateaued at a level a factor >100 lower thanbefore the drop. Our observations will determine if this emission is caused by acontinuation of transient emission after the switch-off of a relativistic jet,or if it is due to the presence of an AGN in the host galaxy.
Instrument
EMOS1, EMOS2, EPN, OM, RGS1, RGS2
Temporal Coverage
2016-10-18T14:20:23Z/2016-10-19T06:10:23Z
Version
17.56_20190403_1200
Mission Description
The European Space Agencys (ESA) X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission (XMM-Newton) was launched by an Ariane 504 on December 10th 1999. XMM-Newton is ESAs second cornerstone of the Horizon 2000 Science Programme. It carries 3 high throughput X-ray telescopes with an unprecedented effective area, and an optical monitor, the first flown on a X-ray observatory. The large collecting area and ability to make long uninterrupted exposures provide highly sensitive observations. Since Earths atmosphere blocks out all X-rays, only a telescope in space can detect and study celestial X-ray sources. The XMM-Newton mission is helping scientists to solve a number of cosmic mysteries, ranging from the enigmatic black holes to the origins of the Universe itself. Observing time on XMM-Newton is being made available to the scientific community, applying for observational periods on a competitive basis.
European Space Agency, Mr Gregory Brown, 2017, 'Late-time observations of a candidate relativistic tidal disruption flare', 17.56_20190403_1200, European Space Agency, https://doi.org/10.5270/esa-u0lebko
