scholarly journals Fitting along the Fundamental Plane: New comparisons of jet physics across the black hole mass scale

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (S275) ◽  
pp. 250-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sera Markoff ◽  
Michael A. Nowak ◽  
Dipankar Maitra ◽  
Jörn Wilms ◽  
Elena Gallo ◽  
...  

AbstractCorrelations between the radio and X-ray bands in the hard state of black hole X-ray binaries (BHBs) have led to the discovery of the Fundamental Plane of black hole accretion, linking accretion-driven radiative attributes to black hole mass. Although this discovery has led to new constraints on radiative efficiencies, there is still significant degeneracy in terms of understanding the governing physics. I present several new results exploring the processes driving the Fundamental Plane over the black hole mass range. These include the first ever homogeneous fits of sources at approximately the same Eddington luminosity but millions of times different in mass, which I focus on for this proceeding article.

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (S290) ◽  
pp. 29-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Heinz ◽  
Andrea Merloni

AbstractRecent observational evidence suggests the existence of two tracks in the radio-X-ray relation for X-ray binaries. Claims have also been made for deviations from the so-called fundamental plane of black hole activity due to the influence of radiative cooling on synchrotron emission from jets and the relative importance of disk and jet emission. In addition, cases of strongly boosted classes of objects, such as BL Lacs, show evidence for jet emission in their location relative to the fundamental plane. In light of the recent literature activity discussing these issues, we revisit the scaling relations expected for synchrotron emission from jet cores. We review the set of scaling laws expected for different types of emission and discuss their relevance to the new observational data, and the conditions under which breaks in the observed scaling relations should be expected. None of the canonical cases offer a satisfactory explanation for the best fit slope of the steep branch of the radio-X-ray relation in hard-state X-ray binaries.


1998 ◽  
Vol 188 ◽  
pp. 388-389
Author(s):  
A. Kubota ◽  
K. Makishima ◽  
T. Dotani ◽  
H. Inoue ◽  
K. Mitsuda ◽  
...  

About 10 X-ray binaries in our Galaxy and LMC/SMC are considered to contain black hole candidates (BHCs). Among these objects, Cyg X-1 was identified as the first BHC, and it has led BHCs for more than 25 years(Oda 1977, Liang and Nolan 1984). It is a binary system composed of normal blue supergiant star and the X-ray emitting compact object. The orbital kinematics derived from optical observations indicates that the compact object is heavier than ~ 4.8 M⊙ (Herrero 1995), which well exceeds the upper limit mass for a neutron star(Kalogora 1996), where we assume the system consists of only two bodies. This has been the basis for BHC of Cyg X-1.


2018 ◽  
Vol 478 (1) ◽  
pp. L132-L136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Gallo ◽  
Nathalie Degenaar ◽  
Jakob van den Eijnden

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (S290) ◽  
pp. 57-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dong Lai ◽  
Wen Fu ◽  
David Tsang ◽  
Jiri Horak ◽  
Cong Yu

AbstractThe physical origin of high-frequency QPOs (HFQPOs) in black-hole X-ray binaries remains an enigma despite many years of detailed observational studies. Although there exists a number of models for HFQPOs, many of these are simply “notions” or “concepts” without actual calculation derived from fluid or disk physics. Future progress requires a combination of numerical simulations and semi-analytic studies to extract physical insights. We review recent works on global oscillation modes in black-hole accretion disks, and explain how, with the help of general relativistic effects, the energy stored in the disk differential rotation can be pumped into global spiral density modes in the disk, making these modes grow to large amplitudes under certain conditions (“corotational instability”). These modes are robust in the presence of disk magnetic fields and turbulence. The computed oscillation mode frequencies are largely consistent with the observed values for HFQPOs in BH X-ray binaries. The approximate 2:3 frequency ratio is also expected from this model. The connection of HFQPOs with other disk properties (such as production of episodic jets) is also discussed.


2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (S275) ◽  
pp. 255-259
Author(s):  
M. Coriat ◽  
S. Corbel ◽  
L. Prat ◽  
J. C. A. Miller-Jones ◽  
D. Cseh ◽  
...  

AbstractIn recent years, numerous efforts have been devoted to unravel the connection between accretion flow and jets in accreting compact objects. Here we report new constraints on these issues, through the long term study of the radio and X-ray behaviour of the black hole candidate H 1743–322. This source is known to be one of the “outliers” of the universal radio/X-ray correlation, i.e. a group of stellar mass accreting black holes displaying fainter radio emission for a given X-ray luminosity, than expected from the correlation. In this work we find, at high X-ray luminosity in the hard state, a tight radio/X-ray correlation with an unusual steep slope of b = 1.38 ± 0.03. This correlation then breaks below ~5 × 10−3LEdd (M/10M⊙)−1 in X-rays and becomes shallower. When compared with radio/X-ray data from other black hole X-ray binaries, we see that the deviant points of H 1743–322 join the universal correlation and seem to follow it at low luminosity. Based on these results, we investigate several hypotheses that could explain both the b ~ 1.4 slope and the transition toward the universal correlation.


2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (S290) ◽  
pp. 37-40
Author(s):  
O. González-Martín ◽  
S. Vaughan

AbstractWe have performed a uniform analysis of the power spectrum densities (PSDs) of 104 nearby (z<0.4) active galactic nuclei (AGN) using 209 XMM-Newton/pn observations, including several AGN classes. These PSDs span ≃ 3 decades in temporal frequencies, ranging from minutes to days. We have fitted each PSD to two models: (1) a single power-law model and (2) a bending power-law model. A fraction of 72% show significant variability. The PSD of the majority of the variable AGN was well described by a simple power-law with a mean index of α = 2.01±0.01. In 15 sources we found that the bending power law model was preferred with a mean slope of α = 3.08±0.04 and a mean bend frequency of 〈νb〉 ≃ 2 × 10−4 Hz. Only KUG 1031+398 (RE J1034+396) shows evidence for quasi-periodic oscillations. The ‘fundamental plane’ relating variability timescale, black hole mass, and luminosity is demonstrated using the new X-ray timing results presented here together with a compilation of the previously detected timescales from the literature.


2011 ◽  
Vol 739 (1) ◽  
pp. L18 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. C. A. Miller-Jones ◽  
P. G. Jonker ◽  
T. J. Maccarone ◽  
G. Nelemans ◽  
D. E. Calvelo

2012 ◽  
Vol 08 ◽  
pp. 102-107
Author(s):  
D. M. RUSSELL

For most black hole X-ray binaries, the fraction of X-ray flux originating in the synchrotron jets is generally thought to be low in the hard state. However in one intriguing case, the infrared – X-ray correlations, evolution of broadband spectra and timing signatures suggest that synchrotron emission from a jet likely dominated both the infrared and X-ray flux on the hard state decline of an outburst of XTE J1550–564 at a luminosity of ~ (2 × 10-4 – 2 × 10-3) L Edd . Synchrotron emission from the relativistic jets launched close to black holes can be highly linearly polarized, depending on the configuration of the magnetic field. It has recently been shown that the polarimetric signature of their jets is detected in the infrared and is highly variable. This reveals the magnetic geometry in a region of the compact jet near its base, close to the black hole. From these results, it is predicted that in some cases, high (possibly up to 10%), variable levels of X-ray polarization from synchrotron emission originating in jets will be detected from accreting black holes by future spaceborne X-ray polarimeters.


2020 ◽  
Vol 644 ◽  
pp. L9
Author(s):  
J. R. Song ◽  
X. W. Shu ◽  
L. M. Sun ◽  
Y. Q. Xue ◽  
C. Jin ◽  
...  

RX J1301.9+2747 is an ultrasoft active galactic nucleus (AGN) with unusual X-ray variability that is characterized by a long quiescent state and a short-lived flare state. The X-ray flares are found to recur quasi-periodically on a timescale of 13−20 ks. Here, we report the analysis of the light curve in the quiescent state from two XMM-Newton observations spanning 18.5 years, along with the discovery of a possible quasi-periodic X-ray oscillation (QPO) with a period of ∼1500 s. The QPO is detected at the same frequency in the two independent observations, with a combined significance of > 99.89%. The QPO is in agreement with the relation between frequency and black hole mass (MBH) that has been reported in previous works for AGNs and Galactic black hole X-ray binaries (XRBs). The QPO frequency is stable over almost two decades, suggesting that it may correspond to the high-frequency type found in XRBs and originates, perhaps, from a certain disk resonance mode. In the 3:2 twin-frequency resonance model, our best estimate on the MBH range implies that a maximal black hole spin can be ruled out. We find that all ultrasoft AGNs reported so far display quasi-periodicities in the X-ray emission, suggesting a possible link on the part of the extreme variability phenomenon to the ultrasoft X-ray component. This indicates that ultrasoft AGNs could be the most promising candidates in future searches for X-ray periodicities.


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