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Disk, Corona, Jet Connection in the Intermediate State of MAXI J1820+070 Revealed by NICER Spectral-timing Analysis

Wang J, Mastroserio G, Kara E, Garcia JA, Ingram A, Connors R, Van Der Klis M, Dauser T, Steiner JF, Buisson DJK, Homan J, Lucchini M, Fabian AC, Bright J, Fender R, Cackett EM, Remillard RA (2021)

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Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2021

Journal

Book Volume: 910

Journal Issue: 1

DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/abec79

Abstract

We analyze five epochs of Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) data of the black hole X-ray binary MAXI J1820+070 during the bright hard-to-soft state transition in its 2018 outburst with both reflection spectroscopy and Fourier-resolved timing analysis. We confirm the previous discovery of reverberation lags in the hard state, and find that the frequency range where the (soft) reverberation lag dominates decreases with the reverberation lag amplitude increasing during the transition, suggesting an increasing X-ray emitting region, possibly due to an expanding corona. By jointly fitting the lag-energy spectra in a number of broad frequency ranges with the reverberation model reltrans, we find the increase in reverberation lag is best described by an increase in the X-ray coronal height. This result, along with the finding that the corona contracts in the hard state, suggests a close relationship between spatial extent of the X-ray corona and the radio jet. We find the corona expansion (as probed by reverberation) precedes a radio flare by similar to 5 days, which may suggest that the hard-to-soft transition is marked by the corona expanding vertically and launching a jet knot that propagates along the jet stream at relativistic velocities.

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APA:

Wang, J., Mastroserio, G., Kara, E., Garcia, J.A., Ingram, A., Connors, R.,... Remillard, R.A. (2021). Disk, Corona, Jet Connection in the Intermediate State of MAXI J1820+070 Revealed by NICER Spectral-timing Analysis. Astrophysical Journal Letters, 910(1). https://dx.doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/abec79

MLA:

Wang, Jingyi, et al. "Disk, Corona, Jet Connection in the Intermediate State of MAXI J1820+070 Revealed by NICER Spectral-timing Analysis." Astrophysical Journal Letters 910.1 (2021).

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