2017/12/31 by Jingyi Wang-Ji, Jingyi Wang, Javier A. García +9 · 69 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Accretion (finance) #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Binary number #Corona (planetary geology) #Galaxy #Luminosity #Mechanics and Biomechanics Studies #Physics #RADIUS #Swift #Telescope #Truncation (statistics) #astro-ph.HE
paper · pdf · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/aaa974
published in The Astrophysical Journal 855(1), 61 (IOP Publishing) · 15 pages, 8 figures, 6 tables, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal
arxiv created 2018/01/21 · openalex publication_date 2018/03/01 · arxiv updated 2018/03/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Abstract We analyze 11 Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array and Swift observations of the black hole X-ray binary GX 339–4 in the hard state, 6 of which were taken during the end of the 2015 outburst and 5 during a failed outburst in 2013. These observations cover luminosities from 0.5% to 5% of the Eddington luminosity. Implementing the most recent version of the reflection model relxillCp , we perform simultaneous spectral fits on both data sets to track the evolution of the properties in the accretion disk, including the inner edge radius, the ionization, and the temperature of the thermal emission. We also constrain the photon index and electron temperature of the primary source (the “corona”). We observe a maximum truncation radius of 37 R g in the preferred fit for the 2013 data set, and a marginal correlation between the level of truncation and luminosity. We also explore a self-consistent model under the framework of coronal Comptonization, and find consistent results regarding the disk truncation in the 2015 data, providing a more physical preferred fit for the 2013 observations.