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Publication Details
AFRICAN RESEARCH NEXUS
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN RESEARCH
earth and planetary sciences
Ubiquitous equatorial accretion disc winds in black hole soft states
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, Volume 422, No. 1, Year 2012
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Description
High-resolution spectra of Galactic black holes (GBHs) reveal the presence of highly ionized absorbers. In one GBH, accreting close to the Eddington limit for more than a decade, a powerful accretion disc wind is observed to be present in softer X-ray states and it has been suggested that it can carry away enough mass and energy to quench the radio jet. Here we report that these winds, which may have mass outflow rates of the order of the inner accretion rate or higher, are a ubiquitous component of the jet-free soft states of all GBHs. We furthermore demonstrate that these winds have an equatorial geometry with opening angles of few tens of degrees, and so are only observed in sources in which the disc is inclined at a large angle to the line of sight. The decrease in Fe XXV/Fe XXVI line ratio with Compton temperature, observed in the soft state, suggests a link between higher wind ionization and harder spectral shapes. Although the physical interaction between the wind, accretion flow and jet is still not fully understood, the mass flux and power of these winds and their presence ubiquitously during the soft X-ray states suggest they are fundamental components of the accretion phenomenon. © 2012 The Authors. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society © 2012 RAS.
Authors & Co-Authors
Ponti, Gabriele
United Kingdom, Southampton
University of Southampton
Fender, Robert P.
United Kingdom, Southampton
University of Southampton
Dunn, J. H.Robert
Germany, Munich
Technische Universität München
Neilsen, Joseph
United States, Cambridge
Mit Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
Coriat, Mickaël
United Kingdom, Southampton
University of Southampton
Statistics
Citations: 307
Authors: 5
Affiliations: 5
Identifiers
Doi:
10.1111/j.1745-3933.2012.01224.x
ISSN:
17453933