Subscribe to the gold package and get unlimited access to Shamra Academy
Register a new userQPOs in the Time Domain: An Autocorrelation Analysis
82
0
0.0
(
0
)
Ask ChatGPT about the research
No Arabic abstract
Motivated by the recent proposal that one can obtain quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) by photon echoes manifesting as non-trivial features in the autocorrelation function (ACF), we study the ACFs of the light curves of three accreting black hole candidates and a neutron star already known to exhibit QPOs namely, GRS 1915+105, XTE J1550-564, XTE J1859+226 and Cygnus X-2. We compute and focus on the form of the ACFs in search of systematics or specific temporal properties at the time scales associated with the known QPO frequencies in comparison with the corresponding PDS. Even within our small object sample we find both similarities as well as significant and subtle differences in the form of the ACFs both amongst black holes and between black holes and neutron stars to warrant a closer look at the QPO phenomenon in the time domain: The QPO features manifest as an oscillatory behavior of the ACF at lags near zero; the oscillation damps exponentially on time scales equal to the inverse QPO width to a level of a percent or so. In black holes this oscillatory behavior is preserved and easily discerned at much longer lags while this is not the case for the neutron star system Cyg X-2. The ACF of GRS 1915+105 provides an exception to this general behavior in that its decay is linear in time indicating an undamped oscillation of coherent phase. We present simple ad hoc models that reproduce these diverse time domain behaviors and we speculate that their origin is the phase coherence of the underlying oscillation. It appears plausible that time domain analyses, complementary to the more common frequency domain ones, could impose tighter constraints and provide clues for the driving mechanisms behind the QPO phenomenon.
rate research
Read More
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.
Dwarf novae (DNe) and low mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) are compact binaries showing variability on time scales from years to less than seconds. Here, we focus on explaining part of the rapid fluctuations in DNe, following the framework of recent studies on the monthly eruptions of DNe that use a hybrid disk composed of an outer standard disk and an inner magnetized disk. We show that the ionization instability, that is responsible for the monthly eruptions of DNe, is also able to operate in the inner magnetized disk. Given the low density and the fast accretion time scale of the inner magnetized disk, the ionization instability generates small, rapid heating and cooling fronts propagating back and forth in the inner disk. This leads to quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) with a period of the order of $1000$ s. A strong prediction of our model is that these QPOs can only develop in quiescence or at the beginning/end of an outburst. We propose that these rapid fluctuations might explain a subclass of already observed QPOs in DNe as well as a, still to observe, subclass of QPOs in LMXBs. We also extrapolate to the possibility that the radiation pressure instability might be related to Type B QPOs in LMXBs.
We investigate frequency correlations of low frequency (LF, <80 Hz) and kHz quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) using the complete RXTE data sets on 6 accreting millisecond X-ray pulsars (AMXPs) and compare them to those of non-pulsating neutron star low mass X-ray binaries with known spin. For the AMXPs SAX J1808.4-3658 and XTE J1807-294, we find frequency-correlation power law indices that, surprisingly, are significantly lower than in the non-pulsars, and consistent with the relativistic precession model (RPM) prediction of 2.0 appropriate to test-particle orbital and Lense-Thirring precession frequencies. As previously reported, power law normalizations are significantly higher in these AMXPs than in the non-pulsating sources, leading to requirements on the neutron star specific moment of inertia in this model that cannot be satisfied with realistic equations of state. At least two other AMXPs show frequency correlations inconsistent with those of SAX J1808.4-3658 and XTE J1807-294, and possibly similar to those of the non-pulsating sources; for two AMXPs no conclusions could be drawn. We discuss these results in the context of a model that has had success in black hole (BH) systems involving a torus-like hot inner flow precessing due to (prograde) frame dragging, and a scenario in which additional (retrograde) magnetic and classical precession torques not present in BH systems are also considered. We show that a combination of these interpretations may accommodate our results.
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.
We report a novel radio autocorrelation (AC) search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). For selected frequencies across the terrestrial microwave window (1-10 GHz) observations were conducted at the Allen Telescope Array to identify artificial non-sinusoidal periodic signals with radio bandwidths greater than 4 Hz, which are capable of carrying substantial messages with symbol-rates from 4-1000000 Hz. Out of 243 observations, about half (101) were directed toward sources with known continuum flux > ~1 Jy over the sampled bandwidth (quasars, pulsars, supernova remnants, and masers), based on the hypothesis that they might harbor heretofore undiscovered natural or artificial, repetitive, phase or frequency modulation. The rest of the targets were mostly toward exoplanet stars with no previously discovered continuum flux. No signals attributable to extraterrestrial technology were found in this study. We conclude that the maximum probability that future observations like the ones described here will reveal repetitively modulated emissions is less than 1% for continuum sources and exoplanets, alike. The paper concludes by describing a new approach to expanding this survey to many more targets and much greater sensitivity using archived data from interferometers all over the world.
Log in to be able to interact and post comments
comments
Fetching comments
Sign in to be able to follow your search criteria
