Origin of the very luminous transient AT2021lwx

Determine the physical origin of the transient AT2021lwx and ascertain whether it is a tidal disruption event or arises from a different mechanism.

Background

In surveying related phenomena, the authors note AT2021lwx as a very luminous transient whose nature has been debated. While some have speculated it could be a TDE, its origin remains unresolved.

Clarifying the classification and mechanism of AT2021lwx is important for understanding the landscape of nuclear transients and their relation to TDEs and other energetic transients.

References

These include events with similar luminosities, timescales, colors, and an origin in host galaxy nuclei, but lacking any spectral features (termed “featureless” TDEs; Hammerstein et al. 2023), as well as events with a contentious origin such as ASASSN-15lh, which has been argued to be either a TDE (Leloudas et al. 2016) or a superluminous supernova (Dong et al. 2016; Brown et al. 2016), or the very luminous transient AT2021lwx, whose origin is unclear but has been speculated to potentially be a TDE (Subrayan et al. 2023).

— AT2023vto: An Exceptionally Luminous Helium Tidal Disruption Event from a Massive Star (2408.01482 - Kumar et al., 2 Aug 2024) in Section 1, Introduction