Anomalous Low States and Long-Term Variability in the Black Hole Binary LMC X-3

Smale, A. P.; Boyd, Patricia T.

doi:10.1088/0004-637x/756/2/146

Cited by 20 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…In order to avoid potential contamination of the time series, we determined a cut-off point for the ASM data. As both the Crab Nebula and Cassiopeia A are bright sources with a consistently high signal-tonoise, we chose the cut-off point to be where the errors in the daily measurements of these two sources consistently exceeded the 3σ range in the same daily monitoring of 4U1705-44, which occurred in October of 2010, in agreement with the cut-off date determined by Smale & Boyd (2012).…”

Section: U 1705-44mentioning

confidence: 84%

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The chaotic long-term X-ray variability of 4U 1705–44

Phillipson

Boyd

Smale

2018

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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The low-mass X-ray binary 4U1705-44 exhibits dramatic long-term X-ray time variability with a timescale of several hundred days. The All-Sky Monitor (ASM) aboard the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) and the Japanese Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image (MAXI) aboard the International Space Station together have continuously observed the source from December 1995 through May 2014. The combined ASM-MAXI data provide a continuous time series over fifty times the length of the timescale of interest. Topological analysis can help us identify 'fingerprints' in the phase-space of a system unique to its equations of motion. The Birman-Williams theorem postulates that if such fingerprints are the same between two systems, then their equations of motion must be closely related. The phase-space embedding of the source light curve shows a strong resemblance to the double-welled nonlinear Duffing oscillator. We explore a range of parameters for which the Duffing oscillator closely mirrors the time evolution of 4U1705-44. We extract low period, unstable periodic orbits from the 4U1705-44 and Duffing time series and compare their topological information. The Duffing and 4U1705-44 topological properties are identical, providing strong evidence that they share the same underlying template. This suggests that we can look to the Duffing equation to help guide the development of a physical model to describe the long-term X-ray variability of this and other similarly behaved X-ray binary systems.

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Section: U 1705-44mentioning

confidence: 84%

“…The final year of observations from the RXTE ASM had consistently higher noise, which was seen in many light curves from various sources as also noted by Smale & Boyd (2012). In order to avoid potential contamination of the time series, we determined a cut-off point for the ASM data.…”

Section: U 1705-44mentioning

confidence: 97%

The chaotic long-term X-ray variability of 4U 1705–44

Phillipson

Boyd

Smale

2018

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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“…GRS 1915+105 has remained very luminous continuously since its appearance in 1992, and GX 339-4 never reaches a deep quiescent state . LMC X-3 is almost always active and highly variable (Section 4.1), although it does have extended low states (Smale & Boyd 2012).…”

Section: Transient Black Hole Binariesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Black Hole Spin via Continuum Fitting and the Role of Spin in Powering Transient Jets

2013

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The spins of ten stellar black holes have been measured using the continuumfitting method. These black holes are located in two distinct classes of X-ray binary systems, one that is persistently X-ray bright and another that is transient. Both the persistent and transient black holes remain for long periods in a state where their spectra are dominated by a thermal accretion disk component. The spin of a black hole of known mass and distance can be measured by fitting this thermal continuum spectrum to the thin-disk model of Novikov and Thorne; the key fit parameter is the radius of the inner edge of the black hole's accretion disk. Strong observational and theoretical evidence links the inner-disk radius to the radius of the innermost stable circular orbit, which is trivially related to the dimensionless spin parameter a * of the black hole (|a * | < 1). The ten spins that have so far been measured by this continuum-fitting method range widely from a * ≈ 0 to a * > 0.95. The robustness of the method is demonstrated by the dozens or hundreds of independent and consistent measurements of spin that have been obtained for several black holes, and through careful consideration of many sources of systematic error. Among the results discussed is a dichotomy between the transient and persistent black holes; the latter have higher spins and larger masses. Also discussed is recently discovered evidence in the transient sources for a correlation between the power of ballistic jets and black hole spin.

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“…LMC X-1 has always been observed in the HSS (see [146]), as the bright galactic source 4U 1957+11 [125]. The second BHB in the LMC, LMC X-3, was only observed in the HSS until with the extensive coverage of RXTE brief transitions to and from the LHS were discovered [153]. The source GRS 1758-258 in the Galactic Center region is mostly in the LHS, but shows sporadic transitions to the HSS (see [158]).…”

Section: The Full Accretion Ejection Picturementioning

confidence: 99%

Transient Black Hole Binaries

Belloni

Motta

2016

Astrophysics and Space Science Library

151

108

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The last two decades have seen a great improvement in our understand- ing of the complex phenomenology observed in transient black-hole binary systems, especially thanks to the activity of the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer satellite, com- plemented by observations from many other X-ray observatories and ground-based radio, optical and infrared facilities. Accretion alone cannot describe accurately the intricate behavior associated with black-hole transients and it is now clear that the role played by different kinds of (often massive) outflows seen at different phases of the outburst evolution of these systems is as fundamental as the one played by the accretion process itself. The spectral-timing states originally identified in the X-rays and fundamentally based on the observed effect of accretion, have acquired new importance as they now allow to describe within a coherent picture the phenomenology observed at other wave- length, where the effects of ejection processes are most evident. With a particular focus on the phenomenology seen in the X-ray band, we review the current state-of-the-art of our knowledge of black hole transients, describing the accretion-ejection connection at play during outbursts through the evolution of the observed spectral-timing properties. Although we mainly concentrate on the ob- servational aspects of the global X-ray transient picture, we also provide physical insight to it by reviewing (when available) the theoretical explanations and models proposed to explain the observed phenomenology.Comment: 37 pages, 7 figures, to be published in: "Astrophysics of Black Holes - From fundamental aspects to latest developments", Ed. Cosimo Bambi, Springer: Astrophysics and Space Science Library. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:0708.0148 by other author

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Anomalous Low States and Long-Term Variability in the Black Hole Binary LMC X-3

Cited by 20 publications

References 45 publications

The chaotic long-term X-ray variability of 4U 1705–44

The chaotic long-term X-ray variability of 4U 1705–44

Black Hole Spin via Continuum Fitting and the Role of Spin in Powering Transient Jets

Transient Black Hole Binaries

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