CaltechAUTHORS
Published March 2, 2023 | Version Supplemental Material
Journal Article Open

A shared accretion instability for black holes and neutron stars

Creators

  • 1. ROR icon Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias
  • 2. ROR icon University of La Laguna
  • 3. ROR icon Villanova University
  • 4. ROR icon University of Southampton
  • 5. ROR icon Texas Tech University
  • 6. ROR icon National Autonomous University of Mexico
  • 7. ROR icon Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
  • 8. ROR icon Chalmers University of Technology
  • 9. ROR icon University of Oxford
  • 10. ROR icon Yale University
  • 11. ROR icon Observatory of Strasbourg
  • 12. ROR icon Brera Astronomical Observatory
  • 13. ROR icon University of Amsterdam
  • 14. ROR icon Space Telescope Science Institute
  • 15. ROR icon Eureka Scientific
  • 16. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 17. ROR icon Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Abstract

Accretion disks around compact objects are expected to enter an unstable phase at high luminosity. One instability may occur when the radiation pressure generated by accretion modifies the disk viscosity, resulting in the cyclic depletion and refilling of the inner disk on short timescales. Such a scenario, however, has only been quantitatively verified for a single stellar-mass black hole. Although there are hints of these cycles in a few isolated cases, their apparent absence in the variable emission of most bright accreting neutron stars and black holes has been a continuing puzzle. Here we report the presence of the same multiwavelength instability around an accreting neutron star. Moreover, we show that the variability across the electromagnetic spectrum—from radio to X-ray—of both black holes and neutron stars at high accretion rates can be explained consistently if the accretion disks are unstable, producing relativistic ejections during transitions that deplete or refill the inner disk. Such a new association allows us to identify the main physical components responsible for the fast multiwavelength variability of highly accreting compact objects.

Additional Information

© 2023 Springer Nature Limited. F.M.V. thanks R. Arcodia, P. Casella, G. Marcel, G. Mastroserio, N. Scepi and L. Stella for insightful discussions. The interpretation of the results benefited from discussions held during the meeting 'Looking at the disc-jet coupling from different angles' at the International Space Science Institute in Bern, Switzerland. F.M.V. was supported by the NASA awards 80NSSC19K1456, 80NSSC21K0526 and from grant FJC2020-043334-I financed by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and NextGenerationEU/PRTR. J.N. acknowledges support by the SAO award GO1-22036X. A.J.T. is a NASA Einstein Fellow and acknowledges support for this work provided by NASA through the NASA Hubble Fellowship grant no. HST-HF2-51494.001 awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. for NASA, under contract NAS5-26555. D.A. and N.C.S. acknowledge support from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) grant ST/V001000/1. F.M.V., M.A.P. and V.A.C. acknowledge support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation research project PID2020-120323GB-I00. M.A.P. acknowledges support from the Consejería de Economía, Conocimiento y Empleo del Gobierno de Canarias and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under grant with reference ProID2021010132 ACCISI/FEDER, UE. T.B. acknowledges financial contribution from the agreement ASI-INAF n.2017-14-H.0 and from PRIN-INAF 2019 N.15. T.M.D. acknowledges support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation project PID2021-124879NB-I00 and the Europa Excelencia grant (EUR2021-122010). T.R. acknowledges the financial contribution from the agreement ASI-INAF n.2017-14-H.0. Contributions: F.M.V. and J.N. drew the new physical scenario for multiwavelength instabilities. F.M.V. carried out the multi-λ timing analysis of the Swift J1858 dataset. A.J.T. modelled the radio variability with the help of S.d.P. and J.v.d.E. Y.C. modelled the phase dependence of the X-ray/IR lag with the help of N.C.S. For Swift J1858, N.C.S. provided the UV and X-ray data; F.J.-I. provided the optical data from LT; G.V., C.D.B., J.M. and M.O.A. provided optical data from Chimera and WASP; J.v.d.E. and T.R. provided the radio data. J.N. is the principal investigator of the Chandra and VLA proposal on GRS 1915; A.J.T. reduced and analysed the radio data. F.M.V., Y.C., G.V., D.A., T.B., N.D., T.M.D. and J.v.d.E. contributed substantially to the development of the luminosity–magnetic field diagram (Extended Data Fig. 1) to compare the different neutron stars. All authors contributed actively to the discussion and to the final version of the manuscript. The authors declare no competing interests.

Attached Files

Supplemental Material - 41586_2022_5648_Fig10_ESM.webp

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Additional details

Identifiers

Eprint ID
122471
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20230725-857129000.43

Funding

NASA
80NSSC19K1456
NASA
80NSSC21K0526
Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN)
FJC2020-043334-I
Agencia Estatal de Investigación
AEI/10.13039/501100011033
European Commission
NASA
GO1-22036X
NASA Einstein Fellowship
NASA Hubble Fellowship
HST-HF2-51494.001
NASA
NAS5-26555
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
ST/V001000/1
Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MCINN)
PID2020-120323GB-I00
Consejería de Economía, Conocimiento, Empresas y Universidad
European Regional Development Fund
ProID2021010132
Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF)
Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI)
2017-14-H.0
Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MCINN)
PID2021-124879NB-I00
Europa Excelencia
EUR2021-122010

Dates

Created
2023-08-14
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2023-10-20
Created from EPrint's last_modified field