Electromagnetic Signatures of Relativistic Explosions in the Disks of Active Galactic Nuclei

The disks of active galactic nuclei (AGNs), traditionally studied as feeders of the supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at their centers, are also hosts to massive stars and hence their neutron star (NS) and black hole (BH) remnants. Migration traps and gas torques in these disks favor binary formation and enhance the rate of compact object mergers. In these environments both long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) from the death of massive stars and short GRBs from NS–NS to NS–BH mergers are expected. However, their properties in the environment of AGN disks have never been studied. Here we show that GRBs in AGN disks can display unique features, owing to the unusual relative position of the shocks that characterize the burst evolution and the Thomson photosphere of the AGN disk. In dense environments, for example, a relativistic reverse shock develops early, likely powering the prompt emission instead of internal shocks. The transient’s time evolution is also compressed, yielding afterglow emission that is brighter and may peak earlier than for GRBs in the interstellar medium. Additionally, in regions of the disk that are sufficiently dense and extended, the light curves are dominated by diffusion, since the fireball remains inside the disk photosphere throughout the entire evolution. These diffusion-dominated transients emerge on timescales of days in disks around SMBHs of ∼ 10 6 M ⊙ to years for SMBHs of ∼ 10 8 M ⊙ . Finally, a large fraction of events, especially in AGNs with SMBHs ≲ 10 7 M ⊙ , display time-variable absorption in the X-ray band.