On the origin of the HLX-1 outbursts

Abstract

HLX-1, currently the best intermediate-mass black hole candidate, has undergone seven violent outbursts, each with a peak X-ray luminosity of $L_{\mathrm{peak},\mathrm{X}}\sim 10^{42}\mathrm{erg}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$. Interestingly, the properties of the HLX-1 outbursts evolve with time. In this work, we aim to constrain the physical parameters of the central engine of the HLX-1 outbursts in the framework of the black hole accretion. We find that the physical properties of the HLX-1 outbursts are consistent with being driven by the radiation pressure instability. This scenario can explain the evolution of the recurrent timescales of the HLX-1 outbursts as a function of the durations.

4 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters

References in corpus (5)

• X-ray outbursts of low-mass X-ray binary transients observed in the RXTE era
• Mechanism of Outflows in Accretion System: Advective Cooling Cannot Balance Viscous Heating?
• Observational Evidence for Young Radio Galaxies are Triggered by Accretion Disk Instability
• Implications of the delayed 2013 outburst of the ESO 243-49 HLX-1
• Studies of Thermally Unstable Accretion Disks around Black Holes with Adaptive Pseudo-Spectral Domain Decomposition Method I. Limit-Cycle Behavior in the Case of Moderate Viscosity

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