Chandra/High Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer Spectroscopy of the Galactic Black Hole GX 339–4: A Relativistic Iron Emission Line and Evidence for a Seyfert-like Warm Absorber

By J. Miller, J. C. Raymond, A. C. Fabian, J. Homan, Michael A. Nowak, R. Wijnands, M. van der Klis, T. Belloni, J. Tomsick, D. Smith and 10 more. 2003

134 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We observed the Galactic black hole GX 339-4 with the Chandra High Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer (HETGS) for 75 ks during the decline of its 2002-2003 outburst. The sensitivity of this observation provides an unprecedented glimpse of a Galactic black hole at about a tenth of the luminosity of the outburst peak. The continuum spectrum is well described by a model consisting of multicolor disk blackbody (kT ≃ 0.6 keV) and power-law (Γ ≃ 2.5) components. X-ray reflection models yield improved fits. A strong, relativistic Fe Kα emission line is revealed, indicating that the inner disk extends to the innermost stable circular orbit. The breadth of the line is sufficient to suggest that GX 339-4 may harbor a black hole with significant angular momentum. Absorption lines from H- and He-like O and He-like Ne and Mg are detected, as well as lines that are likely due to Ne II and Ne III. The measured line properties make it difficult to associate the absorption with the coronal phase of the interstellar medium. A scenario wherein the absorption lines are due to an intrinsic AGN-like warm-absorber geometry—perhaps produced by a disk wind in an extended disk-dominated state—may be more viable. We compare our results to Chandra observations of the Galactic black hole candidate XTE J1650-500 and discuss our findings in terms of prominent models for Galactic black hole accretion flows and connections to supermassive black holes.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/27330a8e16a4887ae9bd556b52bdd462695347aa

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

Citations in the corpus

Simultaneous Chandra and RXTE Spectroscopy of the Microquasar H1743–322: Clues to Disk Wind and Jet Formation from a Variable Ionized Outflow (2004, background): “Variable, Seyfert-like warm-absorber outflows have recently been detected in the X-ray spectra of the Galactic black holesXTE J1650 500 andGX339 4 (Miller et al. 2004a, 2004b).”
Spectral changes during dipping in low-mass X-ray binaries due to highly-ionized absorbers (2005, background): “More recent Chandra High-Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer (HETGS) observations of the black hole candidate H 1743−322 (Miller et al. 2004b) revealed the presence of blue-shifted Fexxv and Fexxvi Article published by EDP Sciences and available at http://www.edpsciences.org/aa or…”
Going with the Flow: Can the Base of Jets Subsume the Role of Compact Accretion Disk Coronae? (2005, background): “For instance, during transition into the HS we observe a hard X-ray tail before the jet forms as a detectable radio structure (Nowak et al. 2002; Miller et al. 2004).”
Relativistic Accretion Disk Models of High-State Black Hole X-Ray Binary Spectra (2004, background): “These concerns are particularly relevant for higher signal-to-noise observations which have inferred relativistically broadened Fe Kα lines but fit the disk component with an unbroadened diskbb model (Miller et al. 2004a, 2004b).”
The evolution of the timing properties of the black-hole transient GX 339-4 during its 2002/2003 outburst (2005, unknown): “A relativistically broadened iron emission line has been detected in the X-ray spectrum of GX 339–4, indicating the presence of a non-zero angular momentum in the black hole (Miller et al. 2004a,b).”
WATCHDOG: A COMPREHENSIVE ALL-SKY DATABASE OF GALACTIC BLACK HOLE X-RAY BINARIES (2015, background): “An additional outflow, in the form of an accretion disk wind, has also been detected in this source (Miller et al. 2004; Ponti et al. 2012).”
Ubiquitous equatorial accretion disc winds in black hole soft states (2012, background): “To do this, we analysed the X-ray spectra of all the Chandra, XMM–Newton and Suzaku observations of black hole low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs; which are GBHs accreting by Roche lobe overflow) with well-studied outbursts (Dunn et al. 2010) and at least one deep (exposure >5 ks) grating spectroscopy o”
On the Origin of Radio Emission in the X-Ray States of XTE J1650–500 during the 2001-2002 Outburst (2004, result): “As GX 339−4 and XTE J1650−500 have similar hydrogen column density (e.g. Miller et al. 2004), we can directly compare their hardness ratios, which are indeed very similar (Figs.”
DISCOVERY OF COHERENT PULSATIONS FROM THE ULTRALUMINOUS X-RAY SOURCE NGC 7793 P13 (2016, background): “…thought to harbor black holes with masses ranging from M ∼ 10 M , consistent with a stellar remnant accreting above the Eddington rate (e.g., Poutanen et al. 2007; Middleton et al. 2015), to intermediate mass BHs (M ∼ 102−5 M ; e.g., Miller et al. 2004) in a sub-Eddington disk accretion regime.”
Relativistic X-Ray Lines from the Inner Accretion Disks Around Black Holes (2007, methodology): “Similar fits to a 75 ksec obser- vation of GX 339−4 in the “very high” and “low/hard” states give rin = 2− 3 rg and rin = 3.0− 5.0 rg, respectively (Miller et al. 2004a, 2006a).”
The Accretion Disk Wind in the Black Hole GRO J1655–40 (2008, background): “The instrumental configuration and the reduction procedure outlined above are fully consistent with prior observations and analyses of observations made in this mode; for additional discussion and context please see Miller et al. (2004, 2006b) and Cackett et al. (2007).”
Multiwavelength Observations of the 2002 Outburst of GX 339–4: Two Patterns of X-Ray-Optical/Near-Infrared Behavior (2005, background): “…of the spectrally soft state and the intermediate state at the end of the 2002/2003 outburst, Fe K emission lines and reflection components in the X-ray spectrum of GX 339 4 (Miller et al. 2004a, 2004b) provide strong evidence for a source that irradiates the inner accretion flow with hard X-rays.”