Cyg X-1 Spectral Evolution 1999-2004

DOI

Continuing the observational campaign initiated by our group, we present the long term spectral evolution of the Galactic black hole candidate Cygnus X-1 in the X-rays and at 15GHz. We present about 200 pointed observations taken between early 1999 and late 2004 with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer and the Ryle radio telescope. The X-ray spectra are remarkably well described by a simple broken power law spectrum with an exponential cutoff. Physically motivated Comptonization models, e.g., by Titarchuk (1994ApJ...434..570T, compTT) and by Coppi (1999, eqpair), can reproduce this simplicity; however, the success of the phenomenological broken power law models cautions against over-parameterizing'' the more physical models. Broken power law models reveal a significant linear correlation between the photon index of the lower energy power law and the hardening of the power law at about 10keV. This phenomenological soft/hard power law correlation is partly attributable to correlations of broad band continuum components, rather than being dominated by the weak hardness/reflection fraction correlation present in the Comptonization model. Specifically, the Comptonization models show that the bolometric flux of a soft excess (e.g., disk component) is strongly correlated with the compactness ratio of the Comptonizing medium, with L_disk{propto}(l_h_/l_s_)^-0.19^. Over the course of our campaign, Cyg X-1 transited several times into the soft state, and exhibited a large number offailed state transitions''. The fraction of the time spent in such low radio emission/soft X-ray spectral states has increased from about 10% in 1996-2000 to about 34% since early 2000. We find that radio flares typically occur during state transitions and failed state transitions (at l_h_/l_s_~3), and that there is a strong correlation between the 10-50keV X-ray flux and the radio luminosity of the source. We demonstrate that rather than there being distinctly separated states, in contrast to the timing properties the spectrum of Cyg X-1 shows variations between extremes of properties, with clear cut examples of spectra at every intermediate point in the observed spectral correlations.

Identifier
DOI http://doi.org/10.26093/cds/vizier.34470245
Source https://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/lp/custom/CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/447/245
Related Identifier https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/A+A/447/245
Related Identifier https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/447/245
Metadata Access http://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/pmh/pubreg.xml?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_b2find&identifier=ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/447/245
Provenance
Creator Wilms J.; Nowak M.A.; Pottschmidt K.; Pooley G.G.; Fritz S.
Publisher CDS
Publication Year 2006
Rights https://cds.unistra.fr/vizier-org/licences_vizier.html
OpenAccess true
Contact CDS support team <cds-question(at)unistra.fr>
Representation
Resource Type Dataset; AstroObjects
Discipline Astrophysics and Astronomy; Natural Sciences; Physics; Stellar Astronomy