Swift J1644+57: an Ideal Test Bed of Radiation Mechanisms in a Relativistic Super-Eddington Jet

Abstract: Within the first 10 days after Swift discovered the jetted tidal disruption event (TDE) Sw J1644+57, simultaneous observations in the radio, near-infrared, optical, X-ray and gamma-ray bands were carried out. These multiwavelength 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 SSC, photospheric and proton synchrotron. The infrared to gamma-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% 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 lightcurve, whereas the synchrotron process in a magnetic jet needs no fine tuning for this TDE.