Discovery of crested quasi-periodic eruptions following the most luminous SRG/eROSITA tidal disruption event

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Hauptverfasser: Baldini, Pietro, Rau, Arne, Merloni, Andrea, Trakhtenbrot, Benny, Arcodia, Riccardo, Giustini, Margherita, Miniutti, Giovanni, Brennan, Seán J., Freyberg, Michael, Sánchez-Sáez, Paula, Grotova, Iuliia, Liu, Zhu, Lian, Tianying, Nandra, Kirpal
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Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Baldini, Pietro
Rau, Arne
Merloni, Andrea
Trakhtenbrot, Benny
Arcodia, Riccardo
Giustini, Margherita
Miniutti, Giovanni
Brennan, Seán J.
Freyberg, Michael
Sánchez-Sáez, Paula
Grotova, Iuliia
Liu, Zhu
Lian, Tianying
Nandra, Kirpal
author_facet Baldini, Pietro
Rau, Arne
Merloni, Andrea
Trakhtenbrot, Benny
Arcodia, Riccardo
Giustini, Margherita
Miniutti, Giovanni
Brennan, Seán J.
Freyberg, Michael
Sánchez-Sáez, Paula
Grotova, Iuliia
Liu, Zhu
Lian, Tianying
Nandra, Kirpal
contents We report the discovery of complex flaring activity from the galactic nucleus hosting the five-year-old tidal disruption event eRASSt J234402.9-352640 (J2344). With Einstein Probe and XMM-Newton observations, we detected highly structured soft X-ray variability. Through temporal decomposition of the XMM-Newton light curve and time-resolved spectral analysis, we identified broad, thermal flares recurring every $\sim$12 hours and lasting $\sim$2 hours, consistent with quasi-periodic eruptions (QPEs). Remarkably, these QPEs are accompanied by an unprecedented crest of hotter, shorter flares, each lasting between 5 and 30 minutes. These flares are predominantly found in the rising phases of the QPEs, although they also appear throughout the quiescence. These findings establish J2344 as a new member of the QPE emitter population and uncover a previously unobserved phenomenology that challenges current models of QPEs. In this letter, we present the phenomenological properties of this unique source and discuss possible interpretations within the framework of extreme-mass-ratio inspirals.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_03932
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Discovery of crested quasi-periodic eruptions following the most luminous SRG/eROSITA tidal disruption event
Baldini, Pietro
Rau, Arne
Merloni, Andrea
Trakhtenbrot, Benny
Arcodia, Riccardo
Giustini, Margherita
Miniutti, Giovanni
Brennan, Seán J.
Freyberg, Michael
Sánchez-Sáez, Paula
Grotova, Iuliia
Liu, Zhu
Lian, Tianying
Nandra, Kirpal
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Astrophysics of Galaxies
We report the discovery of complex flaring activity from the galactic nucleus hosting the five-year-old tidal disruption event eRASSt J234402.9-352640 (J2344). With Einstein Probe and XMM-Newton observations, we detected highly structured soft X-ray variability. Through temporal decomposition of the XMM-Newton light curve and time-resolved spectral analysis, we identified broad, thermal flares recurring every $\sim$12 hours and lasting $\sim$2 hours, consistent with quasi-periodic eruptions (QPEs). Remarkably, these QPEs are accompanied by an unprecedented crest of hotter, shorter flares, each lasting between 5 and 30 minutes. These flares are predominantly found in the rising phases of the QPEs, although they also appear throughout the quiescence. These findings establish J2344 as a new member of the QPE emitter population and uncover a previously unobserved phenomenology that challenges current models of QPEs. In this letter, we present the phenomenological properties of this unique source and discuss possible interpretations within the framework of extreme-mass-ratio inspirals.
title Discovery of crested quasi-periodic eruptions following the most luminous SRG/eROSITA tidal disruption event
topic High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.03932