Detection of disk-jet coprecession in a tidal disruption event

Wang, Yanan and Lin, Zikun and Wu, Linhui and Lei, Wei-Hua and Wei, Shuyuan and Zhang, Shuang-Nan and Ji, Long and Del Palacio, Santiago and Baldi, Ranieri D and Huang, Yang and Liu, Ji-Feng and Zhang, Bing and Yang, Aiyuan and Chen, Ru-Rong and Zhang, Yangwei and Wang, Ai-Ling and Yang, Lei and Charalampopoulos, Panos and Williams-Baldwin, David R A and Yao, Zhu-Heng and Xie, Fu-Guo and Bu, Defu and Feng, Hua and Cao, Xinwu and Wu, Hongzhou and Li, Wenxiong and Qiao, Erlin and Leloudas, Giorgos and Anderson, Joseph P and Shu, Xinwen and Pasham, Dheeraj R and Zou, Hu and Nicholl, Matt and Wevers, Thomas and Müller-Bravo, Tomás E and Wang, Jing and Wei, Jian-Yan and Qiu, Yu-Lei and Guo, Wei-Jian and Gutiérrez, Claudia P and Gromadzki, Mariusz and Inserra, Cosimo and Makrygianni, Lydia and Onori, Francesca and Petrushevska, Tanja and Altamirano, Diego and Galbany, Lluís and Peréz-Torres, Miguel and Chen, Ting-Wan (2025) Detection of disk-jet coprecession in a tidal disruption event. Science Advances, 11 (50): eady9068. ISSN 2375-2548

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Abstract

Theories and simulations predict that intense space-time curvature near black holes bends the trajectories of light and matter, driving disk and jet precession under relativistic torques. However, direct observational evidence of disk-jet coprecession remains elusive. Here, we report the most compelling case to date: a tidal disruption event (TDE) exhibiting unprecedented 19.6-day quasi-periodic variations in both x-rays and radio, with x-ray amplitudes exceeding an order of magnitude. The nearly synchronized x-ray and radio variations suggest a shared mechanism regulating the emission regions. We demonstrate that a disk-jet Lense-Thirring precession model successfully reproduces these variations while requiring a low-spin black hole. This study uncovers previously uncharted short-term radio variability in TDEs, highlights the transformative potential of high-cadence radio monitoring, and offers profound insights into disk-jet physics.