Current wide-area radio surveys are dominated by active galactic nuclei, yet many of these sources have no identified optical counterparts. Here we investigate whether one can constrain the nature and properties of these sources, using Fanaroff-Riley
type II (FRII) radio galaxies as probes. These sources are easy to identify since the angular separation of their lobes remains almost constant at some tens of arcseconds for z>1. Using a simple algorithm applied to the FIRST survey, we obtain the largest FRII sample to date, containing over ten thousand double-lobed sources. A subset of 459 sources is matched to SDSS quasars. This sample yields a statistically meaningful description of the fraction of quasars with lobes as a function of redshift and luminosity. This relation is combined with the bolometric quasar luminosity function, as derived from surveys at IR to hard X-ray frequencies, and a disc-lobe correlation to obtain a robust prediction for the density of FRIIs on the radio sky. We find that the observed density can be explained by the population of known quasars, implying that the majority of powerful jets originate from a radiatively efficient accretion flow with a linear jet-disc coupling. Finally, we show that high-redshift jets are more often quenched within 100 kpc, suggesting a higher efficiency of jet-induced feedback into their host galaxies.
We report an observational estimate of the rate of stellar tidal disruption flares (TDFs) in inactive galaxies, based on a successful search for these events among transients in galaxies using archival SDSS multi-epoch imaging data (Stripe 82). This
search yielded 186 nuclear flares in galaxies, of which two are excellent TDF candidates. Because of the systematic nature of the search, the very large number of galaxies, the long time of observation, and the fact that non-TDFs were excluded without resorting to assumptions about TDF characteristics, this study provides an unparalleled opportunity to measure the TDF rate. To compute the rate of optical stellar tidal disruption events, we simulate our entire pipeline to obtain the efficiency of detection. The rate depends on the light curves of TDFs, which are presently still poorly constrained. Using only the observed part of the SDSS light curves gives a model-independent upper limit to the optical TDF rate: < 2 10^-4 per year per galaxy (90% CL). We develop three empirical models of the light curves, based on the two SDSS light curves and two more recent and better-sampled Pan-STARRS TDF light curves, leading to our best-estimate of the rate: (1.5 - 2.0)_{-1.3}^{+2.7} 10^-5 per year per galaxy. We explore the modeling uncertainties by considering two theoretically motivated light curve models, as well as two different relationships between black hole mass and galaxy luminosity, and two different treatments of the cutoff in the visibility of TDFs at large black hole mass. From this we conclude that these sources of uncertainty are not significantly larger than the statistical ones. Our results are applicable for galaxies hosting black holes with mass in the range of few million to 10^8 solar masses, and translates to a volumetric TDF rate of (4 - 8) 10^-8 per year per cubic Mpc.
Many decades of observations of active galactic nuclei and X-ray binaries have shown that relativistic jets are ubiquitous when compact objects accrete. One could therefore anticipate the launch of a jet after a star is disrupted and accreted by a ma
ssive black hole. This birth of a relativistic jet may have been observed recently in two stellar tidal disruption flares (TDFs), which were discovered in gamma-rays by Swift. Yet no transient radio emission has been detected from the tens of TDF candidates that were discovered at optical to soft X-ray frequencies. Because the sample that was followed-up at radio frequencies is small, the non-detections can be explained by Doppler boosting, which reduces the jet flux for off-axis observers. And since the existing follow-up observation are mostly within ~10 months of the discovery, the non-detections can also be due to a delay of the radio emission with respect to the time of disruption. To test the conjecture that all TDFs launch jets, we obtained 5 GHz follow-up observations with the Jansky VLA of seven known TDFs. To avoid missing delayed jet emission, our observations probe 1-8 years since the estimated time of disruption. None of the sources are detected, with very deep upper limits at the 10 micro Jansky level. These observations rule out the hypothesis that these TDFs launched jets similar to radio-loud quasars. We also constrain the possibility that the flares hosted a jet identical to Sw 1644+57, the first and best-sampled relativistic TDF. We thus obtain evidence for a dichotomy in the stellar tidal disruption population, implying that the jet launching mechanism is sensitive to the parameters of the disruption.
A star that passes too close to a massive black hole will be torn apart by tidal forces. The flare of photons emitted during the accretion of the stellar debris is predicted to be observable and candidates of such events have been observed at optical
to X-ray frequencies. If a fraction of the accreted material is fed into a jet, tidal flares should be detectable at radio frequencies too, thus comprising a new class of rare radio transients. Using the well-established scaling between accretion power and jet luminosity and basic synchrotron theory, we construct an empirically-rooted model to predict the jet luminosity for a time-dependent accretion rate. We apply this model to stellar tidal disruptions and predict the snapshot rate of these events. For a small angle between the observer and the jet, our model reproduces the observed radio flux of the tidal flare candidate GRB 110328A. We find that future radio surveys will be able to test whether the majority of tidal disruptions are accompanied by a jet.
