The ABC of Low-Frequency Quasi-periodic Oscillations in Black Hole Candidates: Analogies with Z Sources

By P. Casella, T. Belloni, L. N. I. D. Brera, I. -. O. Roma. 2005

285 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Three main types of low-frequency quasi-periodic oscillations (LFQPOs) have been observed in black hole candidates. We reanalyzed RXTE data of the bright systems XTE J1859+226, XTE J1550-564, and GX 339-4, which show all three types. We review the main properties of these LFQPOs and show that they follow a well-defined correlation in a fractional rms versus softness diagram. We show that the frequency behavior through this correlation presents clear analogies with that of horizontal-, normal-, and flaring-branch oscillations in Z sources, with the inverse of the fractional rms being the equivalent of the curvilinear coordinate Sz through the Z track.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/89a6c9d7f7e63fe952b6ff01e2feacc2753bfe21

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

1. T. Belloni
2. S. Motta
3. Robert P. Fender
4. J. Homan
5. G. Sivakoff
6. T. Muñoz-Darias
7. C. Heinke
8. J. Gladstone

In Nuclear and High Energy Physics

1. T. Belloni
2. Robert P. Fender
3. S. Motta
4. J. Homan
5. T. Muñoz-Darias
6. G. Sivakoff
7. P. Casella
8. L. Stella

Citations in the corpus

• Jets from black hole X-ray binaries: testing, refining and extending empirical models for the coupling to X-rays (2009, background): “It is worth not- ing that immediately following these zones and phases with very strong QPOs (e.g. power spectrum ’d’) the power spectrum returns to the band limited noise shape which it had in the HIMS prior to the zone, however with a signficantly softer spectrum.”
• Ultraluminous X-ray sources in the Chandra and XMM-Newton era (2011, background): “For other types of timing features (e.g., type A and B QPOs), it is still not known whether their frequency is proportional to the BH mass (Casella et al. 2005).”
• Low-frequency oscillations in black holes: a spectral-timing approach to the case of GX 339-4 (2011, background): “Similar fast transitions between different types of QPOs have already been observed in GX 339-4 (Miyamoto & Kitamoto 1991) and in other sources, such as XTE J1859+226 (Casella et al. 2004) and GS 1124-68 (Takizawa et al. 1997).”
• A review of quasi-periodic oscillations from black hole X-ray binaries: Observation and theory (2019, background): “These are thought to correspond respectively to Type -C, -B and -A QPOs in BH systems (see Fig 1, right panels) [36, 162], partly because they occur when the source showing them is in the same region of the HID (see Fig 2, bottom right), and partly because HBOs follow the same correlation between QP”
• WATCHDOG: A COMPREHENSIVE ALL-SKY DATABASE OF GALACTIC BLACK HOLE X-RAY BINARIES (2015, background): “There are three main types of low-frequency QPOs (LFQPOs), ranging in frequency from mHz to∼ 10 Hz, commonly observed in BHXBs (Wijnands et al. 1999; Casella et al. 2005).”
• Precise mass and spin measurements for a stellar-mass black hole through X-ray timing: the case of GRO J1655-40 (2013, methodology): “In BH binaries the HBOs find their equivalent in the type-C QPOs (Casella et al. 2005), which are observed in PDS of nearly all the known Galactic accreting BH binaries.”
• Rapid optical and X-ray timing observations of GX 339-4: multi-component optical variability in the low/hard state (2010, background): “The characteristic frequency of 0.05 Hz,Q values of a few, and integrated rms values of≈2–3 per cent (at least on the better Nights 1 and 2), suggest that this feature has properties similar to ‘Type C’ low frequency QPOs classified by Casella et al. (2005).”