A rapidly changing jet orientation in the stellar-mass black-hole system V404 Cygni

James C A Miller-Jones¹, Alexandra J Tetarenko^{2

3}, Gregory R Sivakoff², Matthew J Middleton⁴, Diego Altamirano⁴, Gemma E Anderson⁵, Tomaso M Belloni⁶, Rob P Fender⁷, Peter G Jonker^{8

9}, Elmar G Körding⁹, Hans A Krimm^{10

11}, Dipankar Maitra¹², Sera Markoff^{13

14}, Simone Migliari^{15

16}, Kunal P Mooley^{7

17

18}, Michael P Rupen¹⁹, David M Russell²⁰, Thomas D Russell¹³, Craig L Sarazin²¹, Roberto Soria^{5

22

23}, Valeriu Tudose²⁴

Affiliations

¹ International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research-Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia. james.miller-jones@curtin.edu.au.
² Department of Physics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
³ East Asian Observatory, Hilo, HI, USA.
⁴ School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.
⁵ International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research-Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia.
⁶ Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF)-Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, Merate, Italy.
⁷ Astrophysics, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
⁸ Netherlands Institute for Space Research (SRON), Utrecht, The Netherlands.
⁹ Department of Astrophysics/IMAPP, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
¹⁰ Universities Space Research Association, Columbia, MD, USA.
¹¹ National Science Foundation, Alexandria, VA, USA.
¹² Department of Physics and Astronomy, Wheaton College, Norton, MA, USA.
¹³ Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
¹⁴ Gravitation Astroparticle Physics Amsterdam (GRAPPA) Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
¹⁵ European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC)/European Space Agency (ESA), XMM-Newton Science Operations Centre, Madrid, Spain.
¹⁶ Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB), Barcelona, Spain.
¹⁷ National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), Socorro, NM, USA.
¹⁸ Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA.
¹⁹ Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Centre, Penticton, British Columbia, Canada.
²⁰ New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
²¹ Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA.
²² School of Astronomy and Space Sciences, University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
²³ Sydney Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
²⁴ Institute for Space Sciences, Bucharest-Magurele, Romania.

PMID: 31036949
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1152-0

A rapidly changing jet orientation in the stellar-mass black-hole system V404 Cygni

James C A Miller-Jones et al. Nature. 2019 May.

. 2019 May;569(7756):374-377.

doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1152-0. Epub 2019 Apr 29.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research-Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia. james.miller-jones@curtin.edu.au.
² Department of Physics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
³ East Asian Observatory, Hilo, HI, USA.
⁴ School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.
⁵ International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research-Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia.
⁶ Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF)-Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, Merate, Italy.
⁷ Astrophysics, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
⁸ Netherlands Institute for Space Research (SRON), Utrecht, The Netherlands.
⁹ Department of Astrophysics/IMAPP, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
¹⁰ Universities Space Research Association, Columbia, MD, USA.
¹¹ National Science Foundation, Alexandria, VA, USA.
¹² Department of Physics and Astronomy, Wheaton College, Norton, MA, USA.
¹³ Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
¹⁴ Gravitation Astroparticle Physics Amsterdam (GRAPPA) Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
¹⁵ European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC)/European Space Agency (ESA), XMM-Newton Science Operations Centre, Madrid, Spain.
¹⁶ Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB), Barcelona, Spain.
¹⁷ National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), Socorro, NM, USA.
¹⁸ Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA.
¹⁹ Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Centre, Penticton, British Columbia, Canada.
²⁰ New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
²¹ Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA.
²² School of Astronomy and Space Sciences, University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
²³ Sydney Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
²⁴ Institute for Space Sciences, Bucharest-Magurele, Romania.

PMID: 31036949
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1152-0

Abstract

Powerful relativistic jets are one of the main ways in which accreting black holes provide kinetic feedback to their surroundings. Jets launched from or redirected by the accretion flow that powers them are expected to be affected by the dynamics of the flow, which for accreting stellar-mass black holes has shown evidence for precession¹ due to frame-dragging effects that occur when the black-hole spin axis is misaligned with the orbital plane of its companion star². Recently, theoretical simulations have suggested that the jets can exert an additional torque on the accretion flow³, although the interplay between the dynamics of the accretion flow and the launching of the jets is not yet understood. Here we report a rapidly changing jet orientation-on a time scale of minutes to hours-in the black-hole X-ray binary V404 Cygni, detected with very-long-baseline interferometry during the peak of its 2015 outburst. We show that this changing jet orientation can be modelled as the Lense-Thirring precession of a vertically extended slim disk that arises from the super-Eddington accretion rate⁴. Our findings suggest that the dynamics of the precessing inner accretion disk could play a role in either directly launching or redirecting the jets within the inner few hundred gravitational radii. Similar dynamics should be expected in any strongly accreting black hole whose spin is misaligned with the inflowing gas, both affecting the observational characteristics of the jets and distributing the black-hole feedback more uniformly over the surrounding environment^5,6.

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References

1. Ingram, A. et al. A quasi-periodic modulation of the iron line centroid energy in the black hole binary H1743–322. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 461, 1967–1980 (2016). - DOI
1. Lense, J. & Thirring, H. Über den Einfluß der Eigenrotation der Zentralkörper auf die Bewegung der Planeten und Monde nach der Einsteinschen Gravitationstheorie. Phys. Z. 19, 156–163 (1918).
1. Liska, M. et al. Formation of precessing jets by tilted black hole discs in 3D general relativistic MHD simulations. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 474, L81–L85 (2018). - DOI
1. Motta, S. E. et al. Swift observations of V404 Cyg during the 2015 outburst: X-ray outflows from super-Eddington accretion. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 471, 1797–1818 (2017). - DOI
1. Vernaleo, J. C. & Reynolds, C. S. AGN feedback and cooling flows: problems with simple hydrodynamic models. Astrophys. J. 645, 83–94 (2006). - DOI

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A rapidly changing jet orientation in the stellar-mass black-hole system V404 Cygni

Affiliations

A rapidly changing jet orientation in the stellar-mass black-hole system V404 Cygni

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

References

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources

Research Materials