No Arabic abstract
We present the broadband spectral analysis of all the six hard, intermediate and soft state NuSTAR observations of the recently discovered transient black hole X-ray binary MAXI J1348-630 during its first outburst in 2019. We first model the data with a combination of a multi-colour disc and a relativistic blurred reflection, and, whenever needed, a distant reflection. We find that this simple model scheme is inadequate in explaining the spectra, resulting in a very high iron abundance. We, therefore, explore the possibility of reflection from a high-density disc. We use two different sets of models to describe the high-density disc reflection: relxill-based reflection models, and reflionx-based ones. The reflionx-based high-density disc reflection models bring down the iron abundance to around the solar value, while the density is found to be $10^{20.3-21.4} rm cm^{-3}$. We also find evidence of a high-velocity outflow in the form of $sim$7.3 keV absorption lines. The consistency between the best-fit parameters for different epochs and the statistical significance of the corresponding model indicates the existence of high-density disc reflection in MAXI J1348-630.
We studied the multi-wavelength timing and spectral properties of the high mass X-ray binary MAXI J1348$-$630 during two successive outbursts of April and June 2019 using ALMA, Swift, Chandra, NuSTAR and NICER. The position of the source was measured by Chandra (RA=13h48m12.878s, Dec=$-$63$^{circ}$1628.85) with enhanced accuracy. The soft X-ray spectrum (1$-$6 keV) was intensively studied using Chandra/HETG from which multiple absorption-features corresponding to Fe XXII, Fe XXIII, Si XII, Cl XVI, S XV, Ar XVIII lines and the emission features corresponding to Fe XXI, Fe XXIII, Ar XVI lines were detected. We studied the first broadband spectrum for this black hole that included fluxes in radio, optical, ultraviolet and X-ray energy bands using data from ALMA (band 3, 4, 6 and 7; 89.56$-$351.44 GHz) and swift (UVOT and XRT). The broadband study suggested that the source was accompanied by strong blackbody radiation from the disk associated with weak synchrotron emission from the compact jets. The X-ray spectrum was also studied using NuSTAR in the range of 3$-$78 keV. We studied the evolution of spectral parameters using NuSTAR observations (from MJD 58655 to MJD 58672) when the source remained in the canonical hard state during the outburst of June 2019. We detected two type-C QPOs during the outburst of June 2019 with decreasing centroid frequencies from 0.82 Hz to 0.67 Hz and decreasing RMS amplitude from 7.6 per cent to 2.1 per cent. The hardness ratio showed significant variation during the outburst of April 2019 but remained almost constant during the outburst of June 2019. The spectral evolution in the hardness intensity diagram was studied during the outbursts.
The fast variability observed in the X-ray emission from black-hole binaries has a very complex phenomenology, but offers the possibility to investigate directly the properties of the inner accretion flow. In particular, type-B oscillations in the 2-8 Hz range, observed in the Soft-Intermediate state, have been associated to the emission from a relativistic jet. We present the results of the timing and spectral analysis of a set of observations of the bright transient MAXI J1348-630 made with the NICER telescope. The observations are in the brightest part of the outburst and all feature a strong type-B QPO at ~4.5 Hz. We compute the energy dependence of the fractional rms and the phase lags at the QPO frequency, obtaining high signal-to-noise data and sampling for the first time at energies below 2 keV. The fractional rms decreases from more than 10% at 9 keV to 0.6% at 1.5 keV, and is constant below that energy. Taking the 2-3 keV band as reference, photons at all energies show a hard lag, increasing with the distance from the reference band. The behaviour below 2 keV has never been observed before, due to the higher energy bandpass of previous timing instruments. The energy spectrum can be fitted with a standard model for this state, consisting of a thin disc component and a harder power law, plus an emission line between 6 and 7 keV. We discuss the results, concentrating on the phase lags, and show that they can be interpreted within a Comptonization model.
Black hole low mass X-ray binaries in their hard spectral state are found to display two different correlations between the radio emission from the compact jets and the X-ray emission from the inner accretion flow. Here, we present a large data set of quasi-simultaneous radio and X-ray observations of the recently discovered accreting black hole MAXI J1348-630 during its 2019/2020 outburst. Our results span almost six orders of magnitude in X-ray luminosity, allowing us to probe the accretion-ejection coupling from the brightest to the faintest phases of the outburst. We find that MAXI J1348-630 belongs to the growing population of outliers at the highest observed luminosities. Interestingly, MAXI J1348-630 deviates from the outlier track at $L_{rm X} lesssim 7 times 10^{35} (D / 2.2 {rm kpc})^2$ erg s$^{-1}$ and ultimately rejoins the standard track at $L_{rm X} simeq 10^{33} (D / 2.2 {rm kpc})^2$ erg s$^{-1}$, displaying a hybrid radio/X-ray correlation, observed only in a handful of sources. However, for MAXI J1348-630 these transitions happen at luminosities much lower than what observed for similar sources (at least an order of magnitude). We discuss the behaviour of MAXI J1348-630 in light of the currently proposed scenarios and we highlight the importance of future deep monitorings of hybrid correlation sources, especially close to the transitions and in the low luminosity regime.
Spectral-timing analysis of the fast variability observed in X-rays is a powerful tool to study the physical and geometrical properties of the accretion/ejection flows in black-hole binaries. The origin of type-B quasi-periodic oscillations (QPO), predominantly observed in black-hole candidates in the soft-intermediate state, has been linked to emission arising from the relativistic jet. In this state, the X-ray spectrum is characterised by a soft-thermal blackbody-like emission due to the accretion disc, an iron emission line (in the 6-7 keV range), and a power-law like hard component due to Inverse-Compton scattering of the soft-photon source by hot electrons in a corona or the relativistic jet itself. The spectral-timing properties of MAXI J1348-630 have been recently studied using observations obtained with the NICER observatory. The data show a strong type-B QPO at ~4.5 Hz with increasing fractional rms amplitude with energy and positive lags with respect to a reference band at 2-2.5 keV. We use a variable-Comptonisation model that assumes a sinusoidal coherent oscillation of the Comptonised X-ray flux and the physical parameters of the corona at the QPO frequency, to fit simultaneously the energy-dependent fractional rms amplitude and phase lags of this QPO. We show that two physically-connected Comptonisation regions can successfully explain the radiative properties of the QPO in the full 0.8-10 keV energy range.
We present HI absorption spectra of the black hole candidate X-ray binary (XRB) MAXI J1348-630 using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) and MeerKAT. The ASKAP HI spectrum shows a maximum negative radial velocity (with respect to the local standard of rest) of $-31pm4$ km s$^{-1}$ for MAXI J1348-630, as compared to $-50pm4$ km s$^{-1}$ for a stacked spectrum of several nearby extragalactic sources. This implies a most probable distance of $2.2^{+0.5}_{-0.6}$ kpc for MAXI J1348-630, and a strong upper limit of the tangent point distance at $5.3pm0.1$ kpc. Our preferred distance implies that MAXI J1348-630 reached $17pm10$ % of the Eddington luminosity at the peak of its outburst, and that the source transited from the soft to the hard X-ray spectral state at $2.5pm1.5$ % of the Eddington luminosity. The MeerKAT HI spectrum of MAXI J1348-630 (obtained from the older, low-resolution 4k mode) is consistent with the re-binned ASKAP spectrum, highlighting the potential of the eventual capabilities of MeerKAT for XRB spectral line studies.