Swift J1644+57: An ideal test bed of radiation mechanisms in a relativistic super-Eddington jet

Abstract

Within the first 10 d after Swift discovered the jetted tidal disruption event (TDE) SwJ1644+57, simultaneous observations in the radio, near-infrared, optical, X-ray, and γ -ray bands were carried out. Thesemultiwavelength data provide a unique opportunity to constrain the emission mechanism and make-up of a relativistic super-Eddington jet. We consider an exhaustive variety of radiation mechanisms for the generation of X-rays in this TDE, and rule out many processes such as synchrotron self-Compton, photospheric and proton synchrotron. The infrared-to-γ -ray data for Sw J1644+57 are consistent with synchrotron and external-inverse- Compton (EIC) processes provided that electrons in the jet are continuously accelerated on a time-scale shorter than~1 per cent of the dynamical time to maintain a power-law distribution. The requirement of continuous electron acceleration points to magnetic reconnection in a Poynting flux-dominated jet. The EIC process may require fine tuning to explain the observed temporal decay of the X-ray light curve, whereas the synchrotron process in a magnetic jet needs no fine tuning for this TDE.