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Characterizing a Novel Flare in the Distant Quasar VIIIZw233

JSHS · 2024

Padmalakshmi Ramesh, Dr. Michael Brotherton · Laramie High School, Laramie, WY

Overview

The universe is filled with turbulent events, from the collision of black holes to the death of a star in an explosive supernova. One such event is a Tidal Disruption Event (TDE), where a star approaches a black hole and is ripped apart by the black hole’s gravitational forces. The material from the star deposited in the accretion disk causes increased activity in the galaxy. Stellar matter orbits the black hole in an accretion disk. The resulting friction of these fast-moving objects is output as light which is called a quasar. VIIIZw233 is a quasar and is located 1.7 billion lightyears from Earth. In 2018, an unusual flare was documented by the Wyoming Infrared Observatory as electromagnetic spectra. This study’s objective was to categorize the flare in VI IIZw233 and compare them to characteristics of other flares. It was hypothesized that the characteristics of the flare will be similar to a TDE. All data were analyzed in Google Colab, a platform for executing Python online. The values obtained for the peak luminosity, the shapes of the continuum and Hβ light curves, the emission lines in the difference spectra, and the color of the object were comparable to other TDEs.

Competition history

  • JSHS 2024 Category not listed

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