SRG/eROSITA detection of X-ray emission from the direction of WISEA J014421.10+500657.0 hosting nuclear transient ZTF19aacomym

ATel #13529; I. Khabibullin, E. Churazov, M. Gilfanov, P. Medvedev, S. Sazonov, R. Sunyaev, on behalf of the Russian SRG/eROSITA Consortium
on 27 Feb 2020; 22:16 UT
Credential Certification: Ildar Khabibullin (khabibullin@iki.rssi.ru)

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We report on SRG/eROSITA detection of X-ray source SRGet J014421.3+500654 (RA,Dec=26.088616,+50.115028) centered on galaxy WISEA J014421.10+500657.0 (with better than 10 arcsec accuracy), which is the host galaxy of the long-living nuclear transient ZTF19aacomym (ZTF) and a recent Type Ia SN 2019vzf (= ZTF19acwrqtv = Gaia19fpl, discovered on 2019-12-02 at RA,Dec=26.089083,+50.115539, ZTF, Gaia).

In the course of the all-sky survey, SRG/eROSITA observed the source for the first time on 2020-02-05T02:24 and then scanned it 9 more times with an interval of 4 hours (each time with exposure of ~40 seconds). We measure the X-ray flux at the level Fx[0.5-8 keV]=4x10^{-13} erg/s/cm^2 with no significant flux variation distinguished over the observations time-span. Spectral shape of the integrated emission is described by an absorbed powerlaw with Gamma=2.8+/-0.8 and N_H~(2+/-1)x10^{21} cm^{-2} (Galactic N_H=1.3x10^{21} cm^{-2}). The inferred X-ray luminosity equals Lx[0.5-8 keV]=4x10^{42} erg/s at the redshift of the host galaxy, z=0.062, which is comparable to the peak optical luminosity of the nuclear transient ZTF19aacomym.

We encourage multi-wavelength follow-up observations of this source which is probably related to strongly enhanced level of AGN activity, as revealed by bright X-ray emission and large amplitude of optical flux variations.