Analysis of the reflection spectra of MAXI J1535-571 in the hard and intermediate states

Abstract

We report results on the joint-fit of the NuSTAR and HXMT data for the black hole X-ray binary candidate MAXI J1535-571. The observations were obtained in 2017 when the source evolved through the hard, hard-intermediate, and soft-intermediate states over the rising phase of the outburst. After subtracting continuum components, X-ray reflection signatures are clearly showed in those observations. By modelling the relativistic reflection in detail, we find that the inner radius Rin is relatively stable with R_(in) ≲ 1.55R_g during the three states, which implies that the inner radius likely extends to the innermost stable circular orbit even in the bright hard state. When adopting R_(in) = R_(ISCO), the spin parameter is constrained to be 0.985_(-0.004)^(+0.002) at 90 per cent confidence (statistical only). The best-fitting results reveal that the inclination of the inner accretion disc is ∼70–74 deg, which notably conflicts with the apparent orientation of the ballistic jet (≤45 deg). In addition, both the photon index and the electron temperature increase during the transition from hard to soft state. It seems that the corona evolves from dense low-temperature in the low/hard state to tenuous high-temperature after the state transition, which indicates that the state transition is accompanied by the evolution of the coronal properties.

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