Time Domain Studies of X-ray Shot Noise in Cygnus X-1

Abstract

We investigate the variability of Cygnus X-1 in the context of shot moise models, and employ a peak detection algorithm to select individual shots. For a long observation of the low, hard state, the distribution of time intervals between shots is found to be consistent with a purely random process, contrary to previous claims in the literature. The detected shots are fit to several model templates and found to have a broad range of shapes. The fitted shots have a distribution of timescales from below 10 milliseconds to above 1 second. The coherence of the cross spectrum of light curves of these data in different energy bands is also studied. The observed high coherence implies that the transfer function between low and high energy variability is uniform. The uniformity of the tranfer function implies that the observed distribution of shot widths cannot have been acquired through Compton scattering. Our results in combination with other results in the literature suggest that shot luminosities are correlated with one another. We discuss how our experimental methodology relates to non-linear models of variability.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal on July 16, 2005

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