Universal Behavior of X-ray Flares from Black Hole Systems

Abstract

X-ray flares have been discovered in black hole systems, such as gamma-ray bursts, the tidal disruption event Swift J1644+57, the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A${}^{\ast }$ at the center of our Galaxy, and some active galactic nuclei. Their occurrences are always companied by relativistic jets. However, it is still unknown whether there is a physical analogy among such X-ray flares produced in black hole systems spanning nine orders of magnitude in mass. Here we report the observed data of X-ray flares, and show that they have three statistical properties similar to solar flares, including power-law distributions of energies, durations, and waiting times, which both can be explained by a fractal-diffusive self-organized criticality model. These statistical similarities, together with the fact that solar flares are triggered by a magnetic reconnection process, suggest that all of the X-ray flares are consistent with magnetic reconnection events, implying that their concomitant relativistic jets may be magnetically dominated.

23 pages, 4 tables, 6 figures. Accepted for publication by ApJS

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• X-Ray Flares from Postmerger Millisecond Pulsars
• The First Survey of X-ray Flares from Gamma Ray Bursts Observed by Swift: Temporal Properties and Morphology
• A Universal Scaling for the Energetics of Relativistic Jets From Black Hole Systems
• The First Survey of X-ray Flares from Gamma Ray Bursts Observed by Swift: Spectral Properties and Energetics
• Time Dependent Models of Flares from Sagittarius A*
• Similar radiation mechanism in gamma-ray bursts and blazars: evidence from two luminosity correlations

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• Energy and waiting time distributions of FRB 121102 observed by FAST