SIMBAD references

2015ApJ...810...19L - Astrophys. J., 810, 19 (2015/September-1)

Statistics of X-ray flares of Sagittarius A*: evidence for solar-like self-organized criticality phenomena.

LI Y.-P., YUAN F., YUAN Q., WANG Q.D., CHEN P.F., NEILSEN J., FANG T., ZHANG S. and DEXTER J.

Abstract (from CDS):

X-ray flares have routinely been observed from the supermassive black hole at our Galactic center, Sagittarius A (Sgr A*). The nature of these flares remains largely unclear, despite many theoretical models. In this paper, we study the statistical properties of the Sgr A* X-ray flares by fitting the count rate (CR) distribution and the structure function of the light curve with a Markov Chain Monte Carlo method. With the 3-million-second Chandra observations accumulated in the Sgr A* X-ray Visionary Project, we construct the theoretical light curves through Monte Carlo simulations. We find that the 2-8 keV X-ray light curve can be decomposed into a quiescent component with a constant CR of count/s and a flare component with a power-law fluence distribution with. The duration-fluence correlation can also be modeled as a power law with (95% confidence). These statistical properties are consistent with the theoretical prediction of the self-organized criticality system with the spatial dimension S = 3. We suggest that the X-ray flares represent plasmoid ejections driven by magnetic reconnection (similar to solar flares) in the accretion flow onto the black hole.

Abstract Copyright: ∼

Journal keyword(s): accretion, accretion disks - black hole physics - Galaxy: center - methods: statistical

Simbad objects: 5

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