The Relationship Between X-ray Luminosity and Major Flare Launching in GRS 1915+105

Abstract

We perform the most detailed analysis to date of the X-ray state of the Galactic black hole candidate GRS 1915+105 just prior to (0 to 4 hours) and during the brief (1 to 7 hour) ejection of major (superluminal) radio flares. A very strong model independent correlation is found between the 1.2 keV - 12 keV X-ray flux 0 to 4 hours before flare ejections with the peak optically thin 2.3 GHz emission of the flares. This suggests a direct physical connection between the energy in the ejection and the luminosity of the accretion flow preceding the ejection. In order to quantify this concept, we develop techniques to estimate the intrinsic (unabsorbed) X-ray luminosity, $L_{\mathrm{intrinsic}}$, from RXTE ASM data and to implement known methods to estimate the time averaged power required to launch the radio emitting plasmoids, $Q$ (sometimes called jet power). We find that the distribution of intrinsic luminosity from 1.2 keV - 50 keV, $L_{\mathrm{intrinsic}}(1.2-50)$, is systematically elevated just before ejections compared to arbitrary times when there are no major ejections. The estimated $Q$ is strongly correlated with $L_{\mathrm{intrinsic}}(1.2-50)$ 0 to 4 hours before the ejection, the increase in $L_{\mathrm{intrinsic}}(1.2-50)$ in the hours preceding the ejection and the time averaged $L_{\mathrm{intrinsic}}(1.2-50)$ during the flare rise. Furthermore, the total time averaged power during the ejection ($Q$ + the time average of $L_{\mathrm{intrinsic}}(1.2-50)$ during ejection) is strongly correlated with $L_{\mathrm{intrinsic}}(1.2-50)$ just before launch with near equality if the distance to the source is $\approx 10.5$ kpc.

To appear in ApJ

References in corpus (2)

• 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

Cited by in corpus (14)

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• AstroSat view of GRS 1915+105 during the Soft State: Detection of HFQPOs and estimation of Mass and Spin
• A Temporal Analysis Indicates a Mildly Relativistic Compact Jet in GRS~1915+105
• Non-Equilibrium Chemistry and Destruction of CO by X-ray Flares
• General Relativistic Considerations of the Field Shedding Model of Fast Radio Bursts
• The Extreme Ultraviolet Variability of Quasars
• The Extreme Ultraviolet Deficit - Jet Connection in the Quasar 1442+101
• GRS 1915+105 as a Galactic Analog of a Fanaroff-Riley II Quasar
• Calibrated Estimates of the Energy in Major Flares of GRS 1915+105
• The Accretion Flow - Discrete Ejection Connection in GRS 1915+105
• Evidence of Elevated X-Ray Absorption Before and During Major Flare Ejections in GRS 1915+105
• Accretion Geometry of Black Hole X-ray Binaries: Insights from X-ray Observations
• GRMHD Simulations of Magnetized Accretion Disk/Jet: Variabilities of Black Holes and Spectral Energy Distributions in Magnetic States