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X-RAY TRANSIENTS: HYPER- OR HYPO-LUMINOUS?

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journal contribution
posted on 2016-02-01, 10:22 authored by J-P. Lasota, Andrew Robert King, G. Dubus
The disk instability picture gives a plausible explanation for the behavior of soft X-ray transient systems if self-irradiation of the disk is included. We show that there is a simple relation between the peak luminosity (at the start of an outburst) and the decay timescale. We use this relation to place constraints on systems assumed to undergo disk instabilities. The observable X-ray populations of elliptical galaxies must largely consist of long-lived transients, as deduced on different grounds by Piro & Bildsten (2002). The strongly varying X-ray source HLX-1 in the galaxy ESO 243-49 can be modeled as disk instability of a highly super-Eddington stellar-mass binary similar to SS 433. A fit to the disk instability picture is not possible with an intermediate-mass black hole model for HLX-1. Other recently identified super-Eddington ULXs might be subject to disk instability.

History

Citation

Astrophysical Journal Letters, 2015, 801 (1), pp. ?-? (4)

Author affiliation

/Organisation/COLLEGE OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING/Department of Physics and Astronomy

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Published in

Astrophysical Journal Letters

Publisher

IOP Publishing LTD

issn

2041-8205

eissn

2041-8213

Acceptance date

2015-01-31

Copyright date

2015

Available date

2016-02-01

Publisher version

http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2041-8205/801/1/L4

Language

en