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Register a new userThe evolution of GX 339-4 in the low-hard state as seen by NuSTAR and Swift
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We analyze eleven NuSTAR and Swift observations of the black hole X-ray binary GX 339-4 in the hard state, six of which were taken during the end of the 2015 outburst, five during a failed outburst in 2013. These observations cover luminosities from 0.5%-5% of the Eddington luminosity. Implementing the most recent version of the reflection model relxillCp, we perform simultaneous spectral fits on both datasets to track the evolution of the properties in the accretion disk including the inner edge radius, the ionization, and temperature of the thermal emission. We also constrain the photon index and electron temperature of the primary source (the corona). We find the disk becomes more truncated when the luminosity decreases, and observe a maximum truncation radius of $37R_g$. We also explore a self-consistent model under the framework of coronal Comptonization, and find consistent results regarding the disk truncation in the 2015 data, providing a more physical preferred fit for the 2013 observations.
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The microquasar GX 339-4 was observed by Suzaku five times, spaced by a few days, during its transition back to the hard state at the end of its 2010-2011 outburst. The 2-10 keV source flux decreases by a factor ~10 between the beginning and the end of the monitoring. Simultaneous radio and OIR observations highlighted the re-ignition of the radio emission just before the beginning of the campaign, the maximum radio emission being reached between the two first Suzaku pointings, while the IR peaked a few weeks latter. A fluorescent iron line is always significantly detected. Fits with a gaussian or Laor profiles give statistically equivalent results. In the case of a Laor profile, fits of the five data sets simultaneously agree with a disk inclination angle of ~20 degrees. The disk inner radius is <10-30 R_g in the first two observations but almost unconstrained in the last three. A soft X-ray excess is also present in these two first observations. Fits with a multicolor disk component give disk inner radii in agreement with those obtained with the iron line fits. The use of a physically more realistic model, including a blurred reflection component and a comptonization continuum, give some hints of the increase of the disk inner radius but the significances are always weak. Interestingly, the addition of warm absorption significantly improves the fit of OBS1 while it is not needed in the other observations. The radio-jet re-ignition occurring between OBS1 and OBS2, these absorption features may indicate the natural evolution from a disk wind and a jet. The comparison with a long 2008 Suzaku observation of GX 339-4 in a persistent faint hard state where a narrow iron line clearly indicates a disk recession, is discussed.
We use simultaneous Swift and RXTE observations of the black hole binary GX 339-4 to measure the inner radius of its accretion disk in the hard state down to 0.4% L_{Edd} via modeling of the thermal disk emission and the relativistically broadened iron line. For the luminosity range covered in this work, our results rule out a significantly truncated disk at 100-1000 R_g as predicted by the advection-dominated accretion flow paradigm. The measurements depend strongly on the assumed emission geometry, with most results providing no clear picture of radius evolution. If the inclination is constrained to roughly 20 degrees, however, the measurements based on the thermal disk emission suggest a mildly receding disk at a luminosity of 0.4% L_{Edd}. The iron abundance varies between roughly 1-2 solar abundances, with the i=20 degrees results indicating a negative correlation with luminosity, though this is likely due to a change in disk illumination geometry.
We fit spectra of galactic transient source GX~339-4 during its 2013 outburst using Two Component Advective Flow (TCAF) solution. For the first time, we are fitting combined NuSTAR and Swift observation with TCAF. We use TCAF to fit 0.8-9.0~keV Swift and 4-79 keV NuSTAR spectra along with the LAOR model. To fit the data we use disk accretion rate, halo accretion rate, size of the Compton cloud and the density jump of advective flows at this cloud boundary as model parameters. From TCAF fitted flow parameters, and energy spectral index we conclude that the source was in the hard state throughout this particular outburst. The present analysis also gives some idea about the broadening of Fe $K_{alpha}$ with the accretion rate. Since TCAF does not include Fe line yet, we make use of the `LAOR model as a phenomenological model and find an estimate of the Kerr parameter to be $sim 0.99$ for this candidate.
We present an analysis of NuSTAR observations of a hard intermediate state of the transient black hole GX 339-4 taken in January 2015. As the source softened significantly over the course of the 1.3 d-long observation we split the data into 21 sub-sets and find that the spectrum of all of them can be well described by a power-law continuum with an additional relativistically blurred reflection component. The photon index increases from ~1.69 to ~1.77 over the course of the observation. The accretion disk is truncated at around 9 gravitational radii in all spectra. We also perform timing analysis on the same 21 individual data sets, and find a strong type-C quasi-periodic oscillation (QPO), which increase in frequency from ~0.68 to ~1.05 Hz with time. The frequency change is well correlated with the softening of the spectrum. We discuss possible scenarios for the production of the QPO and calculate predicted inner radii in the relativistic precession model as well as the global disk mode oscillations model. We find discrepancies with respect to the observed values in both models unless we allow for a black hole mass of ~100 M_sun , which is highly unlikely. We discuss possible systematic uncertainties, in particular with the measurement of the inner accretion disk radius in the relativistic reflection model. We conclude that the combination of observed QPO frequencies and inner accretion disk radii, as obtained from spectral fitting, is difficult to reconcile with current models.
X-ray and near-infrared ($J$-$H$-$K_{rm s}$) observations of the Galactic black hole binary GX 339--4 in the low/hard state were performed with Suzaku and IRSF in 2009 March. The spectrum in the 0.5--300 keV band is dominated by thermal Comptonization of multicolor disk photons, with a small contribution from a direct disk component, indicating that the inner disk is almost fully covered by hot corona with an electron temperature of $approx$175 keV. The Comptonizing corona has at least two optical depths, $tau approx 1,0.4$. Analysis of the iron-K line profile yields an inner disk radius of $(13.3^{+6.4}_{-6.0}) R_{rm g}$ ($R_{rm g} $ represents the gravitational radius $GM/c^2$), with the best-fit inclination angle of $approx50^circ$. This radius is consistent with that estimated from the continuum fit by assuming the conservation of photon numbers in Comptonization. Our results suggest that the standard disk of GX 339--4 is likely truncated before reaching the innermost stable circular orbit (for a non rotating black hole) in the low/hard state at $sim$1% of the Eddington luminosity. The one-day averaged near-infrared light curves are found to be correlated with hard X-ray flux with $F_{rm Ks} propto F_{rm X}^{0.45}$. The flatter near infrared $ u F_{ u}$ spectrum than the radio one suggests that the optically thin synchrotron radiation from the compact jets dominates the near-infrared flux. Based on a simple analysis, we estimate the magnetic field and size of the jet base to be $5times10^4$ G and $6times 10^8$ cm, respectively. The synchrotron self Compton component is estimated to be approximately 0.4% of the total X-ray flux.
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