Identification of X-ray lines in the spectrum of the arcsec-scale precessing jets of SS 433

Abstract

The extended X-ray emission observed at arcsec scales along the propagation trajectory of the precessing relativistic jets of the Galactic microquasar SS 433 features a broad emission line, with the position of the centroid being significantly different for the approaching and receding jets ($\approx 7.3$ and $\approx 6.4$ keV, respectively). These observed line positions are at odds with the predictions of the kinematic model for any of the plausible bright spectral lines in this band, raising the question of their identification. Here we address this issue by taking into account time delays of the emission coming from the receding regions of the jets relative to that from the approaching ones, which cause a substantial phase shift and distortion of the predicted line positions for the extended ($\sim 10^{17}$ cm) emission compared to the X-ray and optical lines observed from the central source (emitted at distances $\sim 10^{11}$ cm and $\sim 10^{15}$ cm, respectively). We demonstrate that the observed line positions are fully consistent with the Fe XXVI Ly$\alpha$ ($E_0=6.96$ keV) line emerging from a region of size $\sim 6\times 10^{16}$ cm along the jet. This supports the idea that intensive reheating of the jets up to temperatures $\gtrsim 10$ keV takes place at these distances, probably as a result of partial deceleration of the jets due to interaction with the surrounding medium, which might cause collisions between discrete dense blobs inside the jets.

Astronomy Letters, in press; 9 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (3)

• Coupled radio and X-ray emission and evidence for discrete ejecta in the jets of SS 433
• Thermal X-ray emission from a baryonic jet: a self-consistent multicolour spectral model
• Structure and Magnetic Fields in the Precessing Jet System SS433 III. Evolution of the Intrinsic Brightness of the Jets from a Deep Multi-Epoch VLA Campaign

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Arcsecond-Scale X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy of SS 433 with Chandra HETG
• Constraints on the collimated X-ray emission of SS 433 from the reflection on molecular clouds