Journal
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL
Volume 883, Issue 1, Pages -Publisher
IOP PUBLISHING LTD
DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ab3c1a
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) [NAS8-03060]
- Chandra award [GO7-18101A, GO8-19090A]
- National Science Foundation [AST-1715763, AST-1715121]
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
- Fonds de recherche du Quebec-Nature et Technologies (FRQNT) Nouveaux Chercheurs Grant
- McGill Trottier Chair in Astrophysics and Cosmology
- Dan David Foundation
- Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR)
- ESA member states
- NASA
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science
- center for High-Performance Computing at the University of Utah
- Brazilian Participation Group
- Carnegie Institution for Science
- Carnegie Mellon University
- Chilean Participation Group
- French Participation Group
- Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
- Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias
- Johns Hopkins University
- Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU)/University of Tokyo
- Korean Participation Group
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
- Leibniz Institut fur Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP)
- Max-Planck-Institut fur Astronomie (MPIA Heidelberg)
- Max-Planck-Institut fur Astrophysik (MPA Garching)
- Max-Planck-Institut fur Extraterrestrische Physik (MPE)
- National Astronomical Observatories of China
- New Mexico State University
- New York University
- University of Notre Dame
- Observatario Nacional/MCTI
- Ohio State University
- Pennsylvania State University
- Shanghai Astronomical Observatory
- United Kingdom Participation Group
- Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
- University of Arizona
- University of Colorado Boulder
- University of Oxford
- University of Portsmouth
- University of Utah
- University of Virginia
- University of Washington
- University of Wisconsin
- Vanderbilt University
- Yale University
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Despite their factor of similar to 10(8) difference in black hole mass, several lines of evidence suggest possible similarities between black hole accretion flows in active galactic nuclei (AGN) and Galactic X-ray binaries. However, it is still unclear whether the geometry of the disk-corona system in X-ray binaries directly scales up to AGN and whether this analogy still holds in different accretion states. We test this AGN/X-ray binary analogy by comparing the observed correlations between the UV-to-X-ray spectral index (alpha(OX)) and Eddington ratio in AGN to those predicted from observations of X-ray binary outbursts. This approach probes the geometry of their disk-corona systems as they transition between different accretion states. We use new Chandra X-ray and ground-based rest-UV observations of faded changing-look quasars to extend this comparison to lower Eddington ratios of <10(-2), where observations of X-ray binaries predict a softening of alpha(OX) in AGN. We find that the observed correlations between the alpha(OX) and Eddington ratio of AGN displays a remarkable similarity to accretion state transitions in prototypical X-ray binary outbursts, including an inversion of this correlation at a critical Eddington ratio of similar to 10(-2). Our results suggest that the structures of black hole accretion flows directly scale across a factor of similar to 10(8) in black hole mass and across different accretion states, enabling us to apply theoretical models of X-ray binaries to explain AGN phenomenology.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available