No Arabic abstract
Based the Alfven wave oscillation model (AWOM) and relativistic precession model (RPM) for twin kHz QPOs, we estimate the emission positions of most detected kHz QPOs to be at r=18+-3 km (R/15km) except Cir X-1 at r = 30+-5 km (R/15km). For the proposed Keplerian frequency as an upper limit to kHz QPO, the spin effects in Kerr Spacetime are discussed, which have about a 5% (2%) modification for that of the Schwarzchild case for the spin frequency of 1000 (400) Hz.The application to the four typical QPO sources, Cir X-1, Sco X-1, SAX J1808.4-3658 and XTE 1807-294, is mentioned.
We take the recently published data of twin kHz quasi-period oscillations (QPOs) in neutron star (NS) lowmass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) as the samples, and investigate the morphology of the samples, which focuses on the quality factor, peak frequency of kHz QPOs, and try to infer their physical mechanism. We notice that: (1) The quality factors of upper kHz QPOs are low (2 ~ 20 in general) and increase with the kHz QPO peak frequencies for both Z and Atoll sources. (2) The distribution of quality factor versus frequency for the lower kHz QPOs are quite different between Z and Atoll sources. For most Z source samples, the quality factors of lower kHz QPOs are low (usually lower than 15) and rise steadily with the peak frequencies except for Sco X-1, which drop abruptly at the frequency of about 750 Hz. While for most Atoll sources, the quality factors of lower kHz QPOs are very high (from 2 to 200) and usually have a rising part, a maximum and an abrupt drop. (3) There are three Atoll sources (4U 1728-34, 4U 1636-53 and 4U 1608-52) of displaying very high quality factors for lower kHz QPOs. These three sources have been detected with the spin frequencies and sidebands, in which the source with higher spin frequency presents higher quality factor of lower kHz QPOs and lower difference between sideband frequency and lower kHz QPO frequency.
3D MHD simulation of accretion onto neutron stars have shown in the last few years that the footprint (hotspot) of the accretion flow changes with time. Two different kinds of accretion, namely the funnel flow and the equatorial accretion produced by instabilities at the inner disk, produce different kinds of motion of the hotspot. The funnel flow produces hotspots that move around the magnetic pole, while instabilities produce other hotspots that appear randomly and move along the equator or slightly above. The angular velocities of the two hotspots are different, the equatorial one being higher and both close to the Keplerian velocity in the inner region. Modeling of the lightcurves of these hotspots with Monte Carlo simulations show that the signatures produced in power specra by them, if observed, are QPOs plus low frequency components. Their frequencies, general behavior and features describe correctly most of the properties of kHz QPOs, if we assume the funnel flow hotspots as the origin of the lower kHz QPO and instabilities as the origin of the upper kHz QPO.
While kilohertz quasi-periodic oscillations (kHz QPOs) have been well studied for decades since their initial discovery, the cause of these signals remains unknown, as no model has been able to accurately predict all of their spectral and timing properties. Separately, X-ray reverberation lags have been detected in AGN and stellar-mass black hole binaries, and reverberation may be expected to occur in neutron star systems as well, producing lags of the same amplitude as the lags measured of the kHz QPOs. Furthermore, the detection of a relativistically reflected Fe K line in the time-averaged spectra of many neutron star systems provides an additional motivation for testing reverberation. While it has been shown that the lag-energy properties of the lower kHz QPOs are unlikely to be produced by X-ray reverberation, the upper kHz QPOs have not yet been explored. We therefore model the upper kHz QPO lag-energy spectra using relativistic ray-tracing functions and apply them to archival RXTE data on 4U 1728-34 where upper kHz QPOs have been detected. By modeling the time-averaged spectra in which upper kHz QPOs had been significantly detected, we determine the reflected flux fraction across all energies and produce a model for the lag-energy spectra from X-ray reverberation. We explore the dependence of the modeled lag properties on several different types of reflection models, but are unable to successfully reproduce the measured lags of 4U 1728-34. We conclude that reverberation alone does not explain the measured time lags detected in upper kHz QPOs.
We investigate the quality factor and RMS amplitude of the lower kHz QPOs from XTE J1701-462, a unique X-ray source which was observed in both the so-called Z and atoll states. Correcting for the frequency drift of the QPO, we show that, as in all sources for which such a correction can be applied, the quality factor and RMS amplitude drops sharply above above a critical frequency. For XTE J1701-462 this frequency is estimated to be ~800 Hz, where the quality factor reaches a maximum of ~200 (e.g. a value consistent with the one observed from more classical systems, such as 4U~1636-536). Such a drop has been interpreted as the signature of the innermost stable circular orbit, and that interpretation is consistent with the observations we report here. The kHz QPOs in the Z state are much less coherent and lower amplitude than they are in the atoll state. We argue that the change of the QPO properties between the two source states is related to the change of the scale height of the accretion disk; a prediction of the toy model proposed by barret et al. (2007). As a by-product of our analysis, we also increased the significance of the upper kHz QPO detected in the atoll phase up to 4.8 sigma (single trial significance), and show that the frequency separation (266.5+/-13.1 Hz) is comparable with the one measured from simultaneous twin QPOs the Z phase.
We present a detailed spectral-timing analysis of the Kilohertz quasi-periodic oscillations (kHz QPOs) in Sco X-1 using the data of Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer ($RXTE$) and the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope ($Insight$-HXMT). The energy band with detectable kHz QPOs is studied for the first time: on the horizontal branch, it is $sim$ 6.89--24.01 keV and $sim$ 8.68--21.78 keV for the upper and lower kHz QPOs detected by $RXTE$, and $sim$ 9--27.5 keV for the upper kHz QPOs by $Insight$-HXMT; on the lower normal branch, the energy band is narrower. The fractional root mean square (rms) of the kHz QPOs increases with energy at lower energy, reaches a plateau at about 16 keV and 20 keV for the lower and upper peaks, and then levels off though with a large uncertainty. The simulation of the deadtime effect of $RXTE$/PCA shows that the deadtime does not affect much the search of the kHz QPOs but makes the rms amplitude underestimated. No significant QPO is detected below $sim$ 6 keV as shown by the $RXTE$ data, implying that the kHz QPOs do not originate from the black body emission of the accretion disk and neutron star surface. In addition, with the combined analysis of the energy spectra and the absolute rms spectra of kHz QPOs, we suggest that the kHz QPOs in Sco X-1 originate from the Comptonization of the inner part of the transition layer, where the rotation sets the frequency and the inward bulk motion makes the spectrum harder.