VLBI Diagnostics of Off-axis Jets in Radio Flares of Tidal Disruption Events
潮汐瓦解事件晚期射电耀发中离轴喷流的VLBI诊断
The origin of late-time radio flares in tidal disruption events remains unclear. In particular, the peculiar radio flare observed in AT2018hyz has motivated two leading scenarios: a delayed outflow launched ∼1000 days after discovery, or an off-axis relativistic jet directed far from our line of sight. Very long baseline interferometry imaging provides the most direct way to distinguish between these scenarios. In this paper, we calculate synthetic radio images for both models and examine their observational signatures. The motion of the emission centroid is the most powerful diagnostic for breaking the degeneracy. In the delayed-outflow scenario, the centroid motion is confined within a non-relativistic distance, whereas in the off-axis jet scenario it exhibits apparent superluminal motion. Detecting such superluminal motion would therefore provide a smoking-gun signature of the off-axis jet interpretation. We also find that the jet image exhibits characteristic features, including a nonmonotonic evolution of the image aspect ratio. These results are expected to be generic and applicable to other jetted explosions, such as microquasars and gamma-ray bursts.
展开 ▾首次系统对比延迟外流与离轴喷流的合成射电图像,指出质心超光速运动是离轴喷流的决定性信号;还发现喷流图像纵横比随时间非单调演化,可推广到微类星体和伽马暴。
晚期TDE射电耀发的起源长期未定,AT2018hyz的极端光变使延迟外流与离轴喷流两种解释并存 Cendes+ 2022。Matsumoto & Piran 2023 已提出VLBI成像可作为直接诊断手段,本文通过合成图像将其具体化,明确超光速质心运动是离轴喷流的决定性信号。类似的高分辨率图像诊断已在GW170817喷流观测中展现价值 Mooley+ 2018,将其系统移植到TDE晚期耀发有望打破当前简并。未来随着更高灵敏度VLBI和JWST等高精度天体测量推广,对更暗更远TDE乃至微类星体、伽马暴的喷流运动监测将更为可行。
预印本 2025-12-25 · 接收 2026-07-09 · 刊出 2026-08-11 · 收录 2026-08-20