English

A Link Between X-ray Emission Lines and Radio Jets in 4U 1630-47?

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2015-06-18 v1

Abstract

Recently, Diaz Trigo et al. reported an XMM-Newton detection of relativistically Doppler-shifted emission lines associated with steep-spectrum radio emission in the stellar-mass black hole candidate 4U 1630-47 during its 2012 outburst. They interpreted these lines as indicative of a baryonic jet launched by the accretion disk. Here we present a search for the same lines earlier in the same outburst using high-resolution X-ray spectra from the Chandra High-Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer. While our observations (eight months prior to the XMM-Newton campaign) also coincide with detections of steep spectrum radio emission by the Australia Telescope Compact Array, we find no evidence for any relativistic X-ray emission lines. Indeed, despite 5×\sim5\times brighter radio emission, our Chandra spectra allow us to place an upper limit on the flux in the blueshifted Fe XXVI line that is 20×\gtrsim20\times weaker than the line observed by Diaz Trigo et al. We explore several scenarios that could explain our differing results, including variations in the geometry of the jet or a mass-loading process or jet baryon content that evolves with the accretion state of the black hole. We also consider the possibility that the radio emission arises in an interaction between a jet and the nearby ISM, in which case the X-ray emission lines might be unrelated to the radio emission.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1402.5140,
  title  = {A Link Between X-ray Emission Lines and Radio Jets in 4U 1630-47?},
  author = {Joseph Neilsen and Mickael Coriat and Rob Fender and Julia C. Lee and Gabriele Ponti and Tasso Tzioumis and Phil Edwards and Jess W. Broderick},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1402.5140},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

6 pages, 2 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJL. Comments welcome