Observations of a radio-bright, X-ray obscured GRS 1915+105

Abstract

The Galactic black hole transient GRS1915+105 is famous for its markedly variable X-ray and radio behaviour, and for being the archetypal galactic source of relativistic jets. It entered an X-ray outburst in 1992 and has been active ever since. Since 2018 GRS1915+105 has declined into an extended low-flux X-ray plateau, occasionally interrupted by multi-wavelength flares. Here we report the radio and X-ray properties of GRS1915+105 collected in this new phase, and compare the recent data to historic observations. We find that while the X-ray emission remained unprecedentedly low for most of the time following the decline in 2018, the radio emission shows a clear mode change half way through the extended X-ray plateau in 2019 June: from low flux (~3mJy) and limited variability, to marked flaring with fluxes two orders of magnitude larger. GRS1915+105 appears to have entered a low-luminosity canonical hard state, and then transitioned to an unusual accretion phase, characterised by heavy X-ray absorption/obscuration. Hence, we argue that a local absorber hides from the observer the accretion processes feeding the variable jet responsible for the radio flaring. The radio-X-ray correlation suggests that the current low X-ray flux state may be a signature of a super-Eddington state akin to the X-ray binaries SS433 or V404 Cyg.

10 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication on MNRAS

References in corpus (16)

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Cited by in corpus (23)

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• Low-Mass X-ray Binaries
• Phase-resolved spectroscopy of a quasi-periodic oscillation in the black hole X-ray binary GRS 1915+105 with NICER and NuSTAR
• The INTEGRAL view on Black Hole X-ray Binaries
• Unraveling the foretime of GRS 1915+105 using AstroSat observations: Wide-band spectral and temporal characteristics
• ALMA/NICER observations of GRS 1915+105 indicate a return to a hard state
• Sub-second periodic radio oscillations in a microquasar
• Comprehensive coverage of particle acceleration and kinetic feedback from the stellar mass black hole V404 Cygni
• MeerKAT discovers a jet-driven bow shock near GRS 1915+105. How an invisible large-scale jet sculpts a microquasar's environment
• The evolution of the high-frequency variability in the black hole candidate GRS 1915+105 as seen by RXTE
• Bursts from Space: MeerKAT - The first citizen science project dedicated to commensal radio transients
• Black holes at cosmic dawn in the redshifted 21cm signal of HI
• A transient ultraluminous X-ray source in NGC 55
• Accretion disc winds in X-ray binaries
• MeerKAT caught a Mini Mouse: serendipitous detection of a young radio pulsar escaping its birth sit
• Time resolved spectroscopy of a GRS 1915+105 flare during its unusual low state using AstroSat
• Discovery of a new flaring class in GRS 1915+105 using AstroSat
• The Origin of Radio Emission in Black Hole X-ray Binaries
• A large misalignment between continuous jet and discrete ejecta in microquasar GRS 1915+105 during its obscured phase
• Dimming GRS 1915+105 observed with NICER and Insight--HXMT
• Likely detection of magnetic field related LFQPO in the soft X-ray re-brightening of GRS~1915+105
• An infrared FWHM-$K_2$ correlation to uncover highly reddened quiescent black holes
• A high-resolution X-ray view of the ultra-fast outflow in MAXI J1810-222