The Accretion Flow - Discrete Ejection Connection in GRS 1915+105

The microquasar GRS~1915+105 is known for its spectacular discrete ejections. They occur unexpectedly, thus their inception escapes direct observation. It has been shown that the X-ray flux increases in the hours leading up to a major ejection. In this article, we consider the serendipitous interferometric monitoring of a modest version of a discrete ejection described in Reid et al. (2014) that would have otherwise escaped detection in daily radio light curves. The observation begins $\sim 1$ hour after the onset of the ejection, providing unprecedented accuracy on the estimate of the ejection time. The astrometric measurements allow us to determine the time of ejection as $\rm{MJD}\, 56436.274^{+0.016}_{-0.013}$, i.e., within a precision of 41 minutes (95\% confidence). Just like larger flares, we find that the X-ray luminosity increases in last 2 - 4 hours preceding ejection. Our finite temporal resolution indicates that this elevated X-ray flux persists within $21.8^{+22.6}_{-19.1}$ minutes of the ejection with 95\% confidence, the highest temporal precision of the X-ray - superluminal ejection connection to date. This observation provides direct evidence that the physics that launches major flares occurs on smaller scales as well (lower radio flux and shorter ejection episodes). The observation of a X-ray spike prior to a discrete ejection, although of very modest amplitude suggests that the process linking accretion behavior to ejection is general from the smallest scales to high luminosity major superluminal flares.Comment: To appear in Ap

Flaring variability of Microquasars

We discuss flaring variability of radio emission of microquasars, measured in monitoring programs with the RATAN-600 radio telescope. We carried out a multi-frequency (1-30 GHz) daily monitoring of the radio flux variability of the microquasars SS433, GRS1915+105, and Cyg X-3 during the recent sets in 2005-2007. A lot of bright short-time flares were detected from GRS 1915+105 and they could be associated with active X-ray events. In January 2006 we detected a drop down of the quiescent fluxes from Cyg X-3 (from 100 to $\sim$20 mJy), then the 1 Jy-flare was detected on 2 February 2006 after 18 days of quenched radio emission. The daily spectra of the flare in the maximum were flat from 2 to 110 GHz, using the quasi-simultaneous observations at 110 GHz with the RT45m telescope and the NMA millimeter array of NRO in Japan. Several bright radio flaring events (1-15 Jy) followed during the continuing state of very variable and intensive 1-12 keV X-ray emission ($\sim$0.5 Crab), which was monitored in the RXTE ASM program. Swift/BAT ASM hard X-ray fluxes correlated strongly with flaring radio data. The various spectral and temporal characteristics of the light curves from the microquasars could be determined from such comparison. We conclude that monitoring of the flaring radio emission is a good tracer of jet activity X-ray binaries.Comment: 6 pages, 8 figures, published in the proceedings of the Second Kolkata conference on Observational Evidence for Black Holes in the Universe, ed. S.K. Chakrabarti (AIP

An outburst of SS 433 observed on milliarcsecond scale

SS 433 is a high-mass X-ray binary system (XRB) and one of the most persistent sources of relativistic jets in the Milky Way. The object has been intensively studied in radio at arcsecond scales, however the high-resolution observations (i.e. VLBI) are relatively scarce. In 2008 November the system was in outburst. Using the e-VLBI capabilities of the European VLBI Network (EVN) we observed SS 433 for three epochs during the active phase. The data offered a detailed view of the system’s behaviour in outburst at milliarcsecond scales. We used the “kinematic model" (which predicts the position along the jet of any knot ejected at some particular time in the past) to investigate the dynamic parameters of SS 433 and we examined the polarization properties of the ejected material. We report here the preliminary results

Optical and Radio observations of the bright GRB010222 afterglow: evidence for rapid synchrotron cooling?

We report photometric observations of the optical afterglow of GRB010222 in V,R and I passbands carried out at UPSO, Naini Tal between 22-27 Feb 2001. We determine CCD Johnson BV and Cousins RI photometric magnitudes for 31 stars in the field of GRB010222 and use them to calibrate our measurements as well as other published BVRI photometric magnitudes of GRB010222 afterglow. We construct the light curve in V,R,I passbands and from a broken power-law fit determine the decay indices of 0.74+/-0.05 and 1.35+/-0.04 before and after the break at 0.7 days. Using reported X-ray flux measurements at 0.35 and 9.13 days after the burst we determine X-ray to opt/IR spectral index of 0.61+/-0.02 and 0.75+/-0.02 on these two days. We also report upper limits to the radio flux obtained from the RATAN-600 telescope and the GMRT, and millimeter-wave upper limits obtained from the Plateau de Bure Millimeter interferometer. We argue that the synchrotron cooling frequency is below the optical band for most of the observing period. We also estimate an initial jet opening angle of about 2.0n^(1/8) degrees, where n is the number density of the ambient medium.Comment: 16 pages, 4 postscript figures, minor revisions according to referee's comments, millimeter upper limit added, accepted for publication in Bulletin of the Astronomical Society of Indi

Tracking the X-ray Polarization of the Black Hole Transient Swift J1727.8-1613 during a State Transition

We report on a campaign on the bright black hole X-ray binary Swift J1727.8$-$1613 centered around five observations by the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE). This is the first time it has been possible to trace the evolution of the X-ray polarization of a black hole X-ray binary across a hard to soft state transition. The 2--8 keV polarization degree slowly decreased from $\sim$4\% to $\sim$3\% across the five observations, but remained in the North-South direction throughout. Using the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA), we measure the intrinsic 7.25 GHz radio polarization to align in the same direction. Assuming the radio polarization aligns with the jet direction (which can be tested in the future with resolved jet images), this implies that the X-ray corona is extended in the disk plane, rather than along the jet axis, for the entire hard intermediate state. This in turn implies that the long ($\gtrsim$10 ms) soft lags that we measure with the Neutron star Interior Composition ExploreR (NICER) are dominated by processes other than pure light-crossing delays. Moreover, we find that the evolution of the soft lag amplitude with spectral state differs from the common trend seen for other sources, implying that Swift J1727.8$-$1613 is a member of a hitherto under-sampled sub-population.Comment: Submitted to ApJ. 20 pages, 8 figure