Detection of X-ray spectral state transitions in mini-outbursts of black hole transient GRS 1739-278

Abstract

We report the detection of the state transitions and hysteresis effect in the two mini-outbursts of the black hole (BH) transient GRS 1739$-$278 following its 2014 major outburst. The X-ray spectral evolutions in these two mini-outbursts are similar to the major outburst, in spite of their peak luminosities and the outburst durations are one order of magnitude lower. We found the $L_{\mathrm{hard}-\mathrm{to}-\mathrm{soft}}$ and the $L_{\mathrm{peak},\mathrm{soft}}$ of the mini-outbursts also follow the correlation previous found in other X-ray binaries. The $L_{\mathrm{hard}-\mathrm{to}-\mathrm{soft}}$ of the mini-outbursts is still higher than that of the persistent BH binary Cyg X-1, which supports that there is a link between the maximum luminosity a source can reach in the hard state and the corresponding non-stationary accretion represented by substantial rate-of-change in the mass accretion rate during flares/outbursts. The detected luminosity range of these two mini-outbursts is roughly in 3.5$\times 10^{-5}$-- 0.015 ($D/7.5$ kpc)${}^2$($M/8M_{\odot }$) $L_{\mathrm{Edd}}$. The X-ray spectra of other BH transients at such low luminosities are usually dominated by a power-law component, and an anti-correlation is observed between the photon index and the X-ray luminosity below 1\% $L_{\mathrm{Edd}}$. So the detection of X-ray spectral state transitions indicates that the accretion flow evolution in these two mini-outbursts of GRS 1739$-$278 are different from other BH systems at such low-luminosity regime.

accepted for publication in MNRAS

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