A precise measurement of the magnetic field in the corona of the black hole binary V404 Cygni
- Creators
- Dallilar, Yigit
-
Fürst, Felix
Abstract
Observations of binary stars containing an accreting black hole or neutron star often show x-ray emission extending to high energies (>10 kilo–electron volts), which is ascribed to an accretion disk corona of energetic particles akin to those seen in the solar corona. Despite their ubiquity, the physical conditions in accretion disk coronae remain poorly constrained. Using simultaneous infrared, optical, x-ray, and radio observations of the Galactic black hole system V404 Cygni, showing a rapid synchrotron cooling event in its 2015 outburst, we present a precise 461 ± 12 gauss magnetic field measurement in the corona. This measurement is substantially lower than previous estimates for such systems, providing constraints on physical models of accretion physics in black hole and neutron star binary systems.
Additional Information
© 2017 American Association for the Advancement of Science. Received 22 February 2017; accepted 3 November 20. The near-infrared light curve is based on observations made with the Gran Telescopio Canarias, installed in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, in the island of La Palma, during science commissioning of CIRCE. Development of CIRCE was supported by the University of Florida and the National Science Foundation (grant AST-0352664), in collaboration with the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics. The William Herschel Telescope is operated on the island of La Palma by the Isaac Newton Group in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias. The ULTRACAM team and P.G. (grant ST/J003697/2) acknowledge the financial support of the U.K. Science and Technology Facilities Council. This research has made use of data obtained with NuSTAR, a project led by the California Institute of Technology, funded by NASA and managed by NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and has used the NUSTARDAS software package, jointly developed by the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana Science Data Center (Italy) and California Institute of Technology (USA). A.J.C.-T. acknowledges support from the Spanish Ministry Project AYA2015-71718-R. We thank S. Markoff, C. Ceccobello, and T. Maccarone for comments on the scientific discussion. The multiwavelength lightcurves are provided as data file S1, and our derived measurements are listed in table S1. The observational data are available for each instrument: CIRCE at http://astro.ufl.edu/~ydallilar/Dallilar17/CIRCEraw; ULTRACAM at https://sotonac-my.sharepoint.com/personal/pg3e14_soton_ac_uk/Documents/Forms/All.aspx?slrid=603d299e%2D704d%2D4000%2Dbf01%2Dc1708c50f62d&RootFolder=%2Fpersonal%2Fpg3e14%5Fsoton%5Fac%5Fuk%2FDocuments%2Fv404&FolderCTID0x012000F83BE7EA86B4FE49BECFDAA6CEB2B068 (in ULTRACAM pipeline binary format); NuSTAR at https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/FTP/nustar/data/obs/01/9/90102007011; and AMI at www.tauceti.caltech.edu/kunal/uploads/SWIFT_643949-150625.fits (in radio Flexible Image Transport System format).Attached Files
Submitted - science_manuscript_jun11.pdf
Supplemental Material - aan0249-Dallilar-SM.pdf
Supplemental Material - aan0249_Dallilar_SM-Data-File-S1.zip
Files
Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 83784
- DOI
- 10.1126/science.aan0249
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20171211-081010239
- University of Florida
- AST-0352664
- NSF
- ST/J003697/2
- Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
- NASA/JPL/Caltech
- AYA2015-71718-R
- Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MCINN)
- Created
-
2017-12-11Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-11-15Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Space Radiation Laboratory, NuSTAR