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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2025
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.25877 |
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| _version_ | 1866914216452030464 |
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| author | Li, Dongyue Zhang, Wenda Yang, Jun Chen, Jin-Hong Yuan, Weimin Cheng, Huaqing Xu, Fan Shu, Xinwen Shen, Rong-Feng Jiang, Ning Zhu, Jiazheng Zhou, Chang Lei, Weihua Sun, Hui Jin, Chichuan Dai, Lixin Zhang, Bing Yang, Yu-Han Zhang, Wenjie Feng, Hua Liu, Bifang Zhou, Hongyan Pan, Haiwu Liu, Mingjun Corbel, Stephane Jagan, Sitha K. Baglio, Maria Cristina Burns, Christopher R. Cangemi, Floriane Chen, Chun Cheng, Yehao Coleiro, Alexis Zelati, Francesco Coti Das, Sourya R. Dong, Zhongnan Galbany, Luis Grollimund, Noa Kelson, Daniel Lai, Dong Li, Xia Liu, Yuan Marino, Alessio Mockler, Brenna O'Brien, Paul Qiao, Erlin Rea, Nanda Resmi Rodriguez, Jérome Saxton, Richard Sun, Luming Tao, Lian Wang, Tinggui Wang, Yilong Wu, Xuefeng Xu, Dong Zhang, Yijia Zhao, Guoying Bao, Congying Cai, Zhiming Chen, Yehai Chen, Yong Cordier, Bertrand Cui, Chenzhou Cui, Weiwei Fan, Zhou Gao, He Ghirlanda, Giancarlo Guan, Ju Han, Dawei Hao, Jinxin Hu, Jingwei Huang, Maohai Huang, Yong-Feng Jia, Shumei Jin, Ge Komossa, Stefanie Li, Chengkui Ling, Zhixing Liu, Congzhan Liu, Heyang Liu, Huaqiu Lu, Fangjun Nandra, Kirpal Ness, Jan-Uwe Rau, Arne Sanders, Jeremy Song, Liming Soria, Roberto Sun, Shengli Sun, Xiaojin Tan, Yuyin Troja, Eleonora Wen, Sixiang Xu, Haitao Xue, Changbin Xue, Yongquan Yin, Yi-Han Iris Zhang, Chen Zhang, Shuang-Nan Zhang, Yonghe |
| author_facet | Li, Dongyue Zhang, Wenda Yang, Jun Chen, Jin-Hong Yuan, Weimin Cheng, Huaqing Xu, Fan Shu, Xinwen Shen, Rong-Feng Jiang, Ning Zhu, Jiazheng Zhou, Chang Lei, Weihua Sun, Hui Jin, Chichuan Dai, Lixin Zhang, Bing Yang, Yu-Han Zhang, Wenjie Feng, Hua Liu, Bifang Zhou, Hongyan Pan, Haiwu Liu, Mingjun Corbel, Stephane Jagan, Sitha K. Baglio, Maria Cristina Burns, Christopher R. Cangemi, Floriane Chen, Chun Cheng, Yehao Coleiro, Alexis Zelati, Francesco Coti Das, Sourya R. Dong, Zhongnan Galbany, Luis Grollimund, Noa Kelson, Daniel Lai, Dong Li, Xia Liu, Yuan Marino, Alessio Mockler, Brenna O'Brien, Paul Qiao, Erlin Rea, Nanda Resmi Rodriguez, Jérome Saxton, Richard Sun, Luming Tao, Lian Wang, Tinggui Wang, Yilong Wu, Xuefeng Xu, Dong Zhang, Yijia Zhao, Guoying Bao, Congying Cai, Zhiming Chen, Yehai Chen, Yong Cordier, Bertrand Cui, Chenzhou Cui, Weiwei Fan, Zhou Gao, He Ghirlanda, Giancarlo Guan, Ju Han, Dawei Hao, Jinxin Hu, Jingwei Huang, Maohai Huang, Yong-Feng Jia, Shumei Jin, Ge Komossa, Stefanie Li, Chengkui Ling, Zhixing Liu, Congzhan Liu, Heyang Liu, Huaqiu Lu, Fangjun Nandra, Kirpal Ness, Jan-Uwe Rau, Arne Sanders, Jeremy Song, Liming Soria, Roberto Sun, Shengli Sun, Xiaojin Tan, Yuyin Troja, Eleonora Wen, Sixiang Xu, Haitao Xue, Changbin Xue, Yongquan Yin, Yi-Han Iris Zhang, Chen Zhang, Shuang-Nan Zhang, Yonghe |
| contents | Stars captured by black holes (BHs) can be torn apart by strong tidal forces, producing electromagnetic flares. To date, more than 100 tidal disruption events (TDEs) have been observed, each involving invariably normal gaseous stars whose debris falls onto the BH, sustaining the flares over years. White dwarfs (WDs), which are the most prevalent compact stars and a million times denser--and therefore tougher--than gaseous stars, can only be disrupted by intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) of 10^2--10^5 solar masses. WD-TDEs are considered to generate more powerful and short-lived flares, but their evidence has been lacking. Here we report observations of a fast and luminous X-ray transient EP250702a detected by Einstein Probe. Its one-day-long X-ray peak as luminous as 10^(47-49) erg/s showed strong recurrent flares with hard spectra extending to several tens of MeV gamma-rays, as detected by Fermi/GBM and Konus-Wind, indicating relativistic jet emission. The jet's X-ray dropped sharply from 3 x 10^49 erg/s to around 10^44 erg/s within 20 days (10 days in the source rest frame). These characteristics are inconsistent with any known transient phenomena other than a jetted-TDE evolving over an unprecedentedly short timescale, indicating the disruption of a WD by an IMBH. At late times, a new soft component progressively dominates the X-ray spectrum, exhibiting an extreme super-Eddington luminosity, which possibly originates from an accretion disc. WD-TDEs open a new window for investigating the elusive IMBHs and their surrounding stellar environments, and they are prime sources of gravitational waves in the band of space-based interferometers. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_25877 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | A fast powerful X-ray transient from possible tidal disruption of a white dwarf Li, Dongyue Zhang, Wenda Yang, Jun Chen, Jin-Hong Yuan, Weimin Cheng, Huaqing Xu, Fan Shu, Xinwen Shen, Rong-Feng Jiang, Ning Zhu, Jiazheng Zhou, Chang Lei, Weihua Sun, Hui Jin, Chichuan Dai, Lixin Zhang, Bing Yang, Yu-Han Zhang, Wenjie Feng, Hua Liu, Bifang Zhou, Hongyan Pan, Haiwu Liu, Mingjun Corbel, Stephane Jagan, Sitha K. Baglio, Maria Cristina Burns, Christopher R. Cangemi, Floriane Chen, Chun Cheng, Yehao Coleiro, Alexis Zelati, Francesco Coti Das, Sourya R. Dong, Zhongnan Galbany, Luis Grollimund, Noa Kelson, Daniel Lai, Dong Li, Xia Liu, Yuan Marino, Alessio Mockler, Brenna O'Brien, Paul Qiao, Erlin Rea, Nanda Resmi Rodriguez, Jérome Saxton, Richard Sun, Luming Tao, Lian Wang, Tinggui Wang, Yilong Wu, Xuefeng Xu, Dong Zhang, Yijia Zhao, Guoying Bao, Congying Cai, Zhiming Chen, Yehai Chen, Yong Cordier, Bertrand Cui, Chenzhou Cui, Weiwei Fan, Zhou Gao, He Ghirlanda, Giancarlo Guan, Ju Han, Dawei Hao, Jinxin Hu, Jingwei Huang, Maohai Huang, Yong-Feng Jia, Shumei Jin, Ge Komossa, Stefanie Li, Chengkui Ling, Zhixing Liu, Congzhan Liu, Heyang Liu, Huaqiu Lu, Fangjun Nandra, Kirpal Ness, Jan-Uwe Rau, Arne Sanders, Jeremy Song, Liming Soria, Roberto Sun, Shengli Sun, Xiaojin Tan, Yuyin Troja, Eleonora Wen, Sixiang Xu, Haitao Xue, Changbin Xue, Yongquan Yin, Yi-Han Iris Zhang, Chen Zhang, Shuang-Nan Zhang, Yonghe High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena Stars captured by black holes (BHs) can be torn apart by strong tidal forces, producing electromagnetic flares. To date, more than 100 tidal disruption events (TDEs) have been observed, each involving invariably normal gaseous stars whose debris falls onto the BH, sustaining the flares over years. White dwarfs (WDs), which are the most prevalent compact stars and a million times denser--and therefore tougher--than gaseous stars, can only be disrupted by intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) of 10^2--10^5 solar masses. WD-TDEs are considered to generate more powerful and short-lived flares, but their evidence has been lacking. Here we report observations of a fast and luminous X-ray transient EP250702a detected by Einstein Probe. Its one-day-long X-ray peak as luminous as 10^(47-49) erg/s showed strong recurrent flares with hard spectra extending to several tens of MeV gamma-rays, as detected by Fermi/GBM and Konus-Wind, indicating relativistic jet emission. The jet's X-ray dropped sharply from 3 x 10^49 erg/s to around 10^44 erg/s within 20 days (10 days in the source rest frame). These characteristics are inconsistent with any known transient phenomena other than a jetted-TDE evolving over an unprecedentedly short timescale, indicating the disruption of a WD by an IMBH. At late times, a new soft component progressively dominates the X-ray spectrum, exhibiting an extreme super-Eddington luminosity, which possibly originates from an accretion disc. WD-TDEs open a new window for investigating the elusive IMBHs and their surrounding stellar environments, and they are prime sources of gravitational waves in the band of space-based interferometers. |
| title | A fast powerful X-ray transient from possible tidal disruption of a white dwarf |
| topic | High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.25877 |