Polarized synchrotron emission in quiescent black hole X-ray transients

Russell, D. M.; Shahbaz, T.; Lewis, Fraser; Gallo, Elena

doi:10.1093/mnras/stw2166

Cited by 20 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 115 publications

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“…The data (found in Rau, Greiner & Filgas 2011;Krimm, Kennea & Holland 2011b;Corral-Santana et al 2013;Shahbaz et al 2013;Armas Padilla et al 2014;Mata Sánchez et al 2015;Weng & Zhang 2015;Plotkin et al 2016;Russell et al 2016) span a wavelength range from 193 nm in the near-UV to 4.6 µm in the IR. Other instruments and telescopes with detections of Swift J1357.2-0933 are the 2.5 m SDSS telescope at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico (USA), the 2.2 m MPI/ESO telescope at La Silla Observatory ( …”

Section: Archival Data From the Literaturementioning

confidence: 95%

“…Gallo et al 2007;Gelino, Gelino & Harrison 2010;Russell et al 2013) and one neutron star system (Baglio et al 2013), only in Swift J1357.2-0933 does it appear to dominate the quiescent OIR spectrum. High amplitude seconds to hours-timescale optical variability, a red or flat spectral energy distribution (SED), and evidence for intrinsic polarization (Shahbaz et al 2013;Plotkin et al 2016;Russell et al 2016) are all unique properties of Swift J1357.2-0933. These properties cannot be produced by the underlying accretion flow or the companion star.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We derived the Bessell Iband and R-band magnitudes of the field stars using their SDSS magnitudes, adopting the color transformations of Jordi, Grebel & Ammon (2006). We reported one of our I-band magnitudes in Russell et al (2016) that was quasi-simultaneous with near-infrared (near-IR) polarimetric observations; all other Faulkes data are new to this paper. (Ofek et al 2012) on 2014 February 23 (during quiescence).…”

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confidence: 97%

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Optical Precursors to Black Hole X-Ray Binary Outbursts: An Evolving Synchrotron Jet Spectrum in Swift J1357.2–0933

Russell¹,

Qasim²,

Bernardini

et al. 2018

ApJ

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We present six years of optical monitoring of the black hole (BH) candidate X-ray binary Swift J1357.2-0933, during and since its discovery outburst in 2011. On these long timescales, the quiescent light curve is dominated by high amplitude, short-term (seconds-days) variability spanning ∼ 2 mag, with an increasing trend of the mean flux from 2012 to 2017 that is steeper than in any other X-ray binary found to date (0.17 mag yr −1 ). We detected the initial optical rise of the 2017 outburst of Swift J1357.2-0933, and we report that the outburst began between 2017 April 1 and 6. Such a steep optical flux rise preceding an outburst is expected according to disk instability models, but the high amplitude variability in quiescence is not. Previous studies have shown that the quiescent spectral, polarimetric, and rapid variability properties of Swift J1357.2-0933 are consistent with synchrotron emission from a weak compact jet. We find that a variable optical/infrared spectrum is responsible for the brightening: a steep, red spectrum before and soon after the 2011 outburst evolves to a brighter, flatter spectrum since 2013. The evolving spectrum appears to be due to the jet spectral break shifting from the infrared in 2012 to the optical in 2013, then back to the infrared by 2016-2017 while the optical remains relatively bright. Swift J1357.2-0933 is a valuable source to study BH jet physics at very low accretion rates and is possibly the only quiescent source in which the optical jet properties can be regularly monitored.

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Section: Archival Data From the Literaturementioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 97%

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Optical Precursors to Black Hole X-Ray Binary Outbursts: An Evolving Synchrotron Jet Spectrum in Swift J1357.2–0933

Russell¹,

Qasim²,

Bernardini

et al. 2018

ApJ

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“…The radiation models are fully polarized so we can report the polarization of our best-bet model in NIR/optical band and compare it to A0620-00 polarimetric data found in the literature (Russell et al 2016). Accretion rate controls optical thickness of the model, τν .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 93%

Scale-invariance of black hole accretion: modelling emission from a black hole X-ray binary with relativistic accretion flow simulations

Mościbrodzka

2019

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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We model non-thermal emission spectrum of the extremely sub-Eddington X-ray binary system A0620-00. It is believed that this non-thermal emission is produced by a radiatively inefficient "quiescent" accretion onto a stellar-mass black hole present in the system. We post-process GRMHD simulations with multiwavelength, fully polarized, relativistic radiative transfer calculations to predict broadband spectra and emission polarization levels for a range of electron models and accretion rates. We find that a model with strong coupling of electrons and ions in the accretion disk and accretion rate of onlyṀ = 3 × 10 −13 [M yr −1 ] is able to recover the observed X-ray spectral slope as well as the excess of linear polarization detected in the source in NIR/optical bands. Our models constrain the spectral properties of a putative relativistic jet produced in this system. In addition we show that the magnetized winds from our hot accretion flow carry away a small fraction of the orbital angular momentum of the binary unable to explain the observed rapid orbital decay of the system. Similar to the present GRMHD simulations are often used to explain emission from sub-Eddington supermassvie black holes in Sgr A* or M87; the present simulations allow us to test whether some aspects of the quiescent black hole accretion are scale invariant.

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“…These two results, from TNG and MASTER polarimetric data, may represent the first flares of optical polarisation detected from discrete jet ejections in an X-ray binary. Intrinsic optical or NIR polarisation, likely with a steady jet origin, have also been reported from some other BHXBs: XTE J1118+480, XTE J1550-564, GRO J1655-40, Cyg X-1, Swift J1357.2-0933 and A0620-00 [30][31][32][33][34][35].…”

Section: Examples Of Polarisation Of Bhxbsmentioning

confidence: 85%

Optical/Infrared Polarised Emission in X-ray Binaries

Russell¹

2018

Galaxies

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Abstract:Recently, evidence for synchrotron emission in both black-hole (BH) and neutron star X-ray binaries has been mounting, from optical/infrared spectral, polarimetric, and fast timing signatures. The synchrotron emission of jets can be highly linearly polarised, depending on the configuration of the magnetic field (B-field). Optical and infrared (OIR) polarimetric observations of X-ray binaries are presented in this brief review. The OIR polarimetric signature of relativistic jets is detected at levels of ∼1-10%, similarly to for active galactic nuclei (AGN) cores. This reveals that the magnetic geometry in the compact jets may be similar for supermassive and stellar-mass BHs. The B-fields near the jet base in most of these systems appear to be turbulent, variable and on average, aligned with the jet axis, although there are some exceptions. These measurements probe the physical conditions in the accretion (out)flow and demonstrate a new way of connecting inflow and outflow, using both rapid timing and polarisation. Variations in polarisation could be due to rapid changes of the ordering of the B-field in the emitting region, or in one case, flares from individual ejections or collisions between ejecta. It is predicted that in some cases, variable levels of X-ray polarisation from synchrotron emission originating in jets will be detected from accreting galactic BHs with upcoming spaceborne X-ray polarimeters.

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Polarized synchrotron emission in quiescent black hole X-ray transients

Cited by 20 publications

References 115 publications

Optical Precursors to Black Hole X-Ray Binary Outbursts: An Evolving Synchrotron Jet Spectrum in Swift J1357.2–0933

Optical Precursors to Black Hole X-Ray Binary Outbursts: An Evolving Synchrotron Jet Spectrum in Swift J1357.2–0933

Scale-invariance of black hole accretion: modelling emission from a black hole X-ray binary with relativistic accretion flow simulations

Optical/Infrared Polarised Emission in X-ray Binaries

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