Broadband Correlations Provide Evidence for Synchrotron Self-Compton X-rays from the Black Hole Binary GX 339-4

Journal Article · Mon May 11 00:00:00 EDT 2009 · AIP Conference Proceedings

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3149414· OSTI ID:21304879

Coriat, M; Corbel, S ^[1]; Buxton, M M; Baylin, C D ^[2]

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1. Universite Paris Diderot and Service d'Astrophysique, UMR AIM, CEA Saclay, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette (France)
2. Astronomy Department, Yale University P.O. Box 208101, New Haven, CT 06520-8101 (United States)

GX 339-4 has been one of the key sources for unravelling the accretion ejection coupling in accreting stellar mass black holes. After a long period of quiescence between 1999 and 2002, GX 339-4 underwent a series of 4 outbursts that have been intensively observed by many ground based observatories (radio/infrared/optical) and satellites (X-rays). Here, we present some specific results of these broad band observational campaigns, focusing on the optical-infrared/X-ray flux correlations over the four outbursts. Thanks to our extensive data-set, we found a strong OIR/X-ray correlation over four decades with the presence of a break in the correlation index. These results seem to favour a synchrotron self-Compton origin for the X-ray emission in GX 339-4 during the hard state and could also provide an indirect detection of the break frequency in the synchrotron spectrum of the compact jets.

• OSTI ID: 21304879
• Journal Information: AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 1126, Issue 1; Conference: 2. international Simbol-X symposium, Paris (France), 2-5 Dec 2008; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.3149414; (c) 2009 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-243X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS//MATHEMATICS, COMPUTING, AND INFORMATION SCIENCE
ACCRETION DISKS
ASTROPHYSICS
BLACK HOLES
COMPTON EFFECT
CORRELATIONS
COSMIC PHOTONS
COSMIC X-RAY SOURCES
COUPLING
GAMMA ASTRONOMY
JETS
RADIOASTRONOMY
SYNCHROTRON RADIATION
X RADIATION
X-RAY SPECTRA