posted on 2019-10-23, 16:10authored byM. R. Garcia, J. M. Miller, J. E. McClintock, A. R. King, J. Orosz
In this brief note we point out that the four spatially resolved relativistic jets among the 14 dynamically confirmed black hole X-ray novae are all in systems with long orbital periods. Many shorter period systems show transient radio outbursts that are attributed to jets, but these jets have not been spatially resolved. Super-Eddington accretion has been suggested as a requirement for jet formation and may be consistent with our compilation of luminosities, but some super-Eddington outbursts did not form spatially resolved jets. We speculate that some as yet unknown process (or combination of processes) favors formation of substantially larger jets in long-period systems. Two short-period systems show evidence of being extended, but have not been resolved into multiple components, as the long-period systems have.
Funding
We thank the Aspen Center for Physics for its hospitality during the summer of 2002 which
allowed work on this paper to begin. MRG acknowledges the support of NASA/LTSA grant NAGW10889 and NASA contract NAS8-39073. JMM acknowledges support from the NSF through its
Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. JEM acknowledges the support of
NASA ADP grant NAG5-10813. ARK gratefully acknowledges a Royal Society Wolfson Research
Merit Award.
History
Citation
Astrophysical Journal, 2003, 591 (1), pp. 388-396 (9)
Author affiliation
/Organisation/COLLEGE OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING/Department of Physics and Astronomy