Petra Suková

Chaotic and stochastic processes in the accretion flows of the black hole X-ray binaries revealed by recurrence analysis

The black hole candidates exhibit fast variability of their X-ray emission on a wide range of timescales. The short, coherent variations, with frequencies above 1 Hz, are referred to as quasi-periodic oscillations, and are generally explained by resonant effects in the black hole accretion flow. The purely stochastic variability that occurs due to turbulent conditions in the plasma, is quantified by the power density spectra and appears practically in all types of sources and their spectral states. The specific kind of quasi-periodic flares is expected, when the global structure of the accretion flow, governed by the nonlinear hydrodynamics, induces fluctuations around a fixed point solution. These conditions, which occur at high accretion rates, lead to the variability in the sense of deterministic chaos. We study the nonlinear behaviour of X-ray sources using the recurrence analysis method. We estimate quantitatively the indications for deterministic chaos, such as the Renyis entropy, for the observed time series, and we compare them with the surrogate data. Using the data collected by RXTE satellite, we reveal the oscillations pattern and the observable properties of six black hole systems. We confirm that both the well known microquasar GRS 1915+105, as well as its recently discovered analogue, IGR J17091-3624, exhibit variability characteristic to deterministic chaotic system. We conclude therefore that the underlying nature of the process must be intrinsically connected in these sources with the accretion flow instability, that leads to the limit cycle oscillations around a fixed point. Furthermore, we studied four other black hole candidates with high accretion rates. For GX 339-4, GRO J1655-40 and XTE J1550-564 we obtained significant results for some observations, whereas for XTE J1650-500 no such data set was found.

Shocks in the relativistic transonic accretion with low angular momentum

We perform 1D/2D/3D relativistic hydrodynamical simulations of accretion flows with low angular momentum, filling the gap between spherically symmetric Bondi accretion and disc-like accretion flows. Scenarios with different directional distributions of angular momentum of falling matter and varying values of key parameters such as spin of central black hole, energy and angular momentum of matter are considered. In some of the scenarios the shock front is formed. We identify ranges of parameters for which the shock after formation moves towards or outwards the central black hole or the long lasting oscillating shock is observed. The frequencies of oscillations of shock positions which can cause flaring in mass accretion rate are extracted. The results are scalable with mass of central black hole and can be compared to the quasi-periodic oscillations of selected microquasars (such as GRS 1915+105, XTE J1550-564 or IGR J17091-3624), as well as to the supermassive black holes in the centres of weakly active galaxies, such as Sgr

Non-linear behaviour of XTE J1550-564 during its 1998-1999 outburst, revealed by recurrence analysis

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Shocks in the low angular momentum accretion flow

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On Geodesic Dynamics in Deformed Black-Hole Fields

We study the X-ray emission of the microquasar XTE J1550-564 and analyze the properties of its light curves using the recurrence analysis method. The indicators for non-linear dynamics of the accretion flow are found in the very high state and soft state of this source. The significance of deterministic variability depends on the energy band. We discuss the non-linear dynamics of the accretion flow in the context of the disc-corona geometry and propagating oscillations in the accretion flow.

Deterministic Chaos in the X-ray Sources

We address the variability of low luminous galactic nuclei including the Sgr A* or other transient accreting systems, e.g. the black hole X-ray binaries, such as GX 339-4 or IGR J17091. These sources exhibit bright X-ray flares and quasi-periodical oscillations and are theoretically interpreted as the quasi-spherical accretion flows, formed instead of or around Keplerianaccretion disks. In low angular momentum flows the existence of shocks for some range of leading parameters (energy, angular momentum and adiabatic constant of the gas) was studied semi-analytically. The possible hysteresis effect, caused by the fact that the evolution of the flow and the formation of the shock depends on its own history, was discovered. The presence of the shock in the accreted material is important for the observable properties of the out-coming radiation. In the shocked region the gas is dense and hot, thus much more luminous than in the other case. We study the appearance of standing shocks in low angular momentum gas accreting onto a black hole with numerical hydrodynamicalsimulations, using the ZEUS code with Paczynski-Wiitapseudo-Newtonian potential.

On the possible gamma-ray burst–gravitational wave association in GW150914

“Almost all” seems to be known about isolated stationary black holes in asymptotically flat space-times and about the behaviour of test matter and fields in their backgrounds. The black holes likely present in galactic nuclei and in some X-ray binaries are commonly being represented by the Kerr metric, but actually they are not isolated (they are detected only thanks to a strong interaction with the surroundings), they are not stationary (black-hole sources are rather strongly variable) and they also probably do not live in an asymptotically flat universe. Such “perturbations” may query the classical black-hole theorems (how robust are the latter against them?) and certainly affect particles and fields around, which can have observational consequences. In the present contribution we examine how the geodesic structure of the static and axially symmetric black-hole space-time responds to the presence of an additional matter in the form of a thin disc or ring. We use several different methods to show that geodesic motion may become chaotic, to reveal the strength and type of this irregularity and its dependence on parameters. The relevance of such an analysis for galactic nuclei is briefly commented on.

Oscillating shocks in the low angular momentum flows as a source of variability of accreting black holes

Hardly any of the observed black hole accretion disks in X-ray binaries and active galaxies shows constant flux. When the local stochastic variations of the disk occur at specific regions where a resonant behaviour takes place, there appear the quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs). If the global structure of the flow and its non-linear hydrodynamics affects the fluctuations, the variability is chaotic in the sense of deterministic chaos. Our aim is to solve a problem of the stochastic versus deterministic nature of the black hole binary variabilities. We use both observational and analytic methods. We use the recurrence analysis and we study the occurence of long diagonal lines in the recurrence plot of observed data series and compare it to the surrogate series. We analyze here the data of two X-ray binaries – XTE J1550-564 and GX 339-4 observed by Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer. In these sources, the non-linear variability is expected because of the global conditions (such as the mean accretion rate) leading to the possible instability of an accretion disk. The thermal-viscous instability and fluctuations around the fixed-point solution occurs at high accretion rate, when the radiation pressure gives dominant contribution to the stress tensor.