Physics
Scientific paper
Sep 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011head...12.0809c&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, HEAD meeting #12, #8.09
Physics
Scientific paper
The X-ray binary system LMC X-3 is a simple test-bed for accretion physics: its orbital period implies that mass-transfer always takes place via Roche-lobe overflow, and a thermal x-ray component is almost always observed, with a luminosity that varies with temperature according to the expected relation for a disk blackbody. The power-law hard x-ray tail is seen only during periods of declining blackbody luminosity, and not when the luminosity is increasing; this effect is seen in 600 days of data from the Rossi-X-ray Timing Explorer (Smith, Dawson & Swank 2007, ApJ 669, 1138).
Using the power-law component as a proportional measure of the Comptonizing corona's optical depth, and assuming that total mass input is constant but split between disk and corona in some time-varying manner, we can independently predict a blackbody time-series to compare with observations. Applying a (quasistatic) model of disk-corona mass exchange (based on Liu et al. 2007, ApJ 671, 695L) to a non-equilibrium disk (evolved numerically), we can qualitatively explain the data, but for simpler models where disk and corona flows remain independent inside of some injection radius, we can not. Since we still take time-dependence of the initial disk-to-corona accretion ratio as an input, for completeness we also discuss what mechanism(s) might set this ratio.
Cambier Hal J.
Smith Douglas
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