Quasi-Periodic Oscillations from Low-Mass X-Ray Binaries with Neutron Stars

Before the launch of the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) it was recognized that neutron star accretion disks could extend inward to very near the neutron star surface, and thus be governed by millisecond timescales. Previous missions lacked the sensitivity to detect them. The kilohertz quasi-periodic oscillations (QPO) that RXTE discovered are often, but not always, evident in the X-ray flux. In 8 years RXTE has found kilohertz signals in about a fourth of 100 low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXB) containing neutron stars. The observed power spectra have simple dominant features, the two kilohertz oscillations, a low frequency oscillation, and band-limited white noise. They vary systematically with changes in other source properties and offer the possibility of comparison with model predictions. New information from the millisecond pulsars resolves some questions about the relations of the QPO and the spin. Coherence, energy spectrum and time lag measurements have indicated systematic behaviors, which should constrain mechanisms.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, to appear in the proceedings of "X-Ray Timing 2003: Rossi and Beyond", eds. P. Kaaret, F.K. Lamb, & J.H. Swank (Melville, NY: AIP

X-Ray Observations of Low-Mass X-Ray Binaries: Accretion Instabilities on Long and Short Time-Scales

X-rays trace accretion onto compact objects in binaries with low mass companions at rates ranging up to near Eddington. Accretion at high rates onto neutron stars goes through cycles with time-scales of days to months. At lower average rates the sources are recurrent transients; after months to years of quiescence, during a few weeks some part of a disk dumps onto the neutron star. Quasiperiodic oscillations near 1 kHz in the persistent X-ray flux attest to circular motion close to the surface of the neutron star. The neutron stars are probably inside their innermost stable circular orbits and the x-ray oscillations reflect the structure of that region. The long term variations show us the phenomena for a range of accretion rates. For black hole compact objects in the binary, the disk flow tends to be in the transient regime. Again, at high rates of flow from the disk to the black hole there are quasiperiodic oscillations in the frequency range expected for the innermost part of an accretion disk. There are differences between the neutron star and black hole systems, such as two oscillation frequencies versus one. For both types of compact object there are strong oscillations below 100 Hz. Interpretations differ on the role of the nature of the compact object.Comment: 12 pages, 5 Postscript figures, in "Astrophysical Sources of Gravitational Radiation for Ground-Based Detectors", American Institute of Physics, 200

Observations of Type I Bursts from Neutron Stars

Observations of Type I X-ray bursts have long been taken as evidence that the sources are neutron stars. Black body models approximate the spectral data and imply a suddenly heated neutron star cooling over characteristic times of seconds to minutes. The phenomena are convincingly explained in terms of nuclear burning of accreted gas on neutron stars with low mass companion stars. Prospects are promising that detailed theory and data from RXTE and future missions will lead to better determinations of important physical parameters (neutron star mass and radius, composition of the accreting gas, distance of the source). Among the variety of bursts observed, there are probably representatives of different kinds of explosive burning. RXTE's discovery of a 2.5 ms persistent coherent period from one Type I burster has now linked bursters indisputably to the epitome of a neutron star, a fast spinning magnetic compact object. Oscillations in some bursts had already been thought to arise from the neutron stars' rotations. Detailed observations of these oscillations are touchstones of how the explosive bursts originate and progress, as well as independent measures of the neutron star parameters.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, to appear in "Cosmic Explosions, Proceedings of the 10th October Astrophysics in Maryland, AIP Conf. Proceedings 522, ed. S. S. Holt & W. W. Zhang, (AIP: Woodbury, N. Y.), 200

Discovery and Monitoring of a new Black Hole Candidate XTE J1752-223 with RXTE: RMS spectrum evolution, BH mass and the source distance

We report on the discovery and monitoring observations of a new galactic black hole candidate XTE J1752-223 by Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE). The new source appeared on the X-ray sky on October 21 2009 and was active for almost 8 months. Phenomenologically, the source exhibited the low-hard/high-soft spectral state bi-modality and the variability evolution during the state transition that matches standard behavior expected from a stellar mass black hole binary. We model the energy spectrum throughout the outburst using a generic Comptonization model assuming that part of the input soft radiation in the form of a black body spectrum gets reprocessed in the Comptonizing medium. We follow the evolution of fractional root-mean-square (RMS) variability in the RXTE/PCA energy band with the source spectral state and conclude that broad band variability is strongly correlated with the source hardness (or Comptonized fraction). We follow changes in the energy distribution of rms variability during the low-hard state and the state transition and find further evidence that variable emission is strongly concentrated in the power-law spectral component. We discuss the implication of our results to the Comptonization regimes during different spectral states. Correlations of spectral and variability properties provide measurements of the BH mass and distance to the source. The spectral-timing correlation scaling technique applied to the RXTE observation during the hard-to-soft state transition indicates a mass of the BH in XTE J1752-223 between 8 and 11 solar masses and a distance to the source about 3.5 kiloparsec.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

Disk and Coronal Instabilities in GRS 1915+105

We present time-resolved GRS 1915+105 energy and power spectra observed by RXTE, during an episode where the X-ray intensity makes an extreme dip. If the spectra are modeled in terms of disk and power law components, both have large variations. When the inner disk is disrupted, the power law dominates, exhibiting quasi-periodic oscillations with varying frequency until the inner disk returns.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure,to be published in the proceedings of the conference "Accretion Processes in Astrophysics: Some Like it Hot", held at U. Md., October 1997, eds. S. Holt and T. Kallma

The Pattern of Correlated X-ray Timing and Spectral Behavior in GRS 1915+105

From data obtained from the PCA in the 2-11 keV and 11-30.5 keV energy range, GRS 1915+105 is seen during RXTE observations between 1996 May and October on two separate branches in a hardness intensity diagram. On the hard branch, GRS 1915+105 exhibits narrow quasi-periodic oscillations ranging from 0.5 to 6 Hz with ${\Delta \nu \over \nu} \sim 0.2$. The QPOs are observed over intensities ranging from about 6,000 to 20,000 counts s$^{-1}$ in the 2 - 12.5 keV energy band, indicating a strong dependence on source intensity. Strong harmonics are seen, especially, at lower frequencies. As the QPO frequency increases, the harmonic feature weakens and disappears. On the soft branch, narrow QPOs are absent and the low frequency component of the power density spectrum is approximated by a power-law, with index $\sim -1.25$ for low count rates and $\sim -1.5$ for high count rates (\gta 18000 cts/s). Occasionally, a broad peaked feature in the 1-6 Hz frequency range is also observed on this branch. The source was probably in the very high state similar to those of other black hole candidates. Thermal-viscous instabilities in accretion disk models do not predict the correlation of the narrow QPO frequency and luminosity unless the fraction of luminosity from the disk decreases with the total luminosity.Comment: ApJ Lett accepte

Correlated Temporal and Spectral Variability

The variability of neutron star and black hole X-ray sources has several dimensions, because of the roles played by different important time-scales. The variations on time scales of hours, weeks, and months, ranging from 50% to orders of magnitude, arise out of changes in the flow in the disk. The most important driving forces for those changes are probably various possible instabilities in the disk, though there may be effects with other dominant causes. The changes in the rate of flow appear to be associated with changes in the flow's configuration, as the accreting material approaches the compact object, for there are generally correlated changes in both the Xray spectra and the character of the faster temporal variability. There has been a lot of progress in tracking these correlations, both for Z and Atoll neutron star low-mass X-ray binaries, and for black hole binaries. I will discuss these correlations and review briefly what they tell us about the physical states of the systems

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

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.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal on July 16, 200

RXTE timing and spectroscopy of black hole binary in outburst

Under this program, Rossi X-ray timing explorer (RXTE) made observations of the Galactic black hole X-ray binary GX 339-4. These observations were timed to be simultaneous with Chandra observations of the same source. Supporting multi-wavelength observations were also obtained using optical and radio telescopes. The RXTE data have been partially analyzed, and will be published in a paper summarizing both the Chandra and RXTE spectral results. The RXTE spectra are instrumental in defining the continuum spectrum in the Chandra data. Moreover, the timing properties measured with RXTE are essential to diagnosing the "state" of the black hole when it was observed by the array of telescopes organized for this effort