Characterizing the radio--X-ray connection in GRS 1915+105

Abstract

We analyzed radio and X-ray observations of GRS 1915+105, between May 1995 and June 2006, focusing on the times characterized by radio flares and cycles of hard dips-soft spikes in the X-ray lightcurve. Assuming these flares to be discrete ejections, we applied a plasmon model to the radio data, with good agreement with the lightcurves. We fitted a total of 687 radio flares with a standard model of a plasmon. We found that the distribution of width is t_0=1160 s with an rms deviation of 360 s, while that of the amplitude is S_{max}=59 mJy with an rms deviation of 28 mJy. The distribution of width is thus rather peaked, while that of the amplitude not. Regarding radio and X-ray links, this study confirms previous observations on smaller datasets, namely that X-ray cycles of hard dips-soft spikes are always followed by radio flares. A strong correlation is found between the length of X-ray "dips" in the X-ray lightcurves, and the amplitude and fluence of the subsequent radio oscillations. A model of an exponential rise of the form L_{15 GHz}(Delta t) = L_{max} (1-exp(-(Delta t - Delta t_{min})/tau) is in good agreement with the observations, with the maximum fluence L_{max} of the order 70 Jy.s, and the characteristic time tau of the order 200-500 s. We discuss possible physical interpretations of this correlation, regarding the nature of the ejected material, and the physical process responsible for the ejection.

10 pages, 10 figures, emulateapj, accepted by ApJ

References in corpus (4)

• Jets from black hole X-ray binaries: testing, refining and extending empirical models for the coupling to X-rays
• Two Years of INTEGRAL monitoring of GRS 1915+105 Part 2: X-Ray Spectro-Temporal Analysis
• Two years of INTEGRAL monitoring of GRS 1915+105 Part 1: multiwavelength coverage with INTEGRAL, RXTE, and the Ryle radio Telescope
• A transient low-frequency QPO from the black hole binary GRS 1915+105

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• Estimating the Jet Power of Mrk\,231 During the 2017-2018 Flare
• The Accretion Flow - Discrete Ejection Connection in GRS 1915+105