In the Eye of the Storm: The Third Giant X-ray Outburst of the Extreme Changing-look AGN IC 3599

Abstract

We report the discovery and multiwavelength follow-up observations of a giant (factor >100) X-ray outburst of the exceptional changing-look active galactic nucleus (AGN) IC 3599. This is the third such outburst after two previous ones serendipitously discovered in 1990 and 2010. Based on our dedicated long-term monitoring of IC 3599 with {\it Swift}, the third outburst was detected while it was happening, and we triggered multiple follow-up observations within days to weeks for the first time. The Swift outburst spectra are supersoft and almost no photons are detected beyond 2.5 keV. The XMM-Newton short-term light curve shows a remarkable apparent oscillatory pattern that is reminiscent of quasiperiodic oscillations (QPOs). The optical high-state spectra reveal a multitude of bright coronal emission lines that have dramatically brightened and were absent or much fainter in low-state spectra. The new results eliminate outburst scenarios that require a constant time interval of repetitions (like certain variants of repeat tidal stripping, or of an orbiting supermassive black hole impacting the inner accretion disk), but remain in excellent agreement with an accretion disk radiation-pressure instability when assuming that local conditions in the disk of this long-lived AGN affect the onset time of each new instability. The combination of recurrent, giant, supersoft outbursts on decadal timescales, the exceptional emission-line response, and the rapid, candidate quasiperiodic, short-term variability on an hours timescale makes IC 3599 unique among AGN, and establishes it as a key system for studying accretion physics under extreme conditions and at the Eddington limit.