Radio monitoring of the hard state jets in the 2011 outburst of MAXI J1836-194

T. D. Russell (1) , J. C. A. Miller-Jones (1) , P. A. Curran (2, 1) , R. Soria (1) , D. Altamirano (3) , Stéphane Corbel (2, 4) , M. Coriat (5) , A. Moin (6) , D. M. Russell (6) , G. R. Sivakoff (7) , T. J. Slaven-Blair (1) , T. M. Belloni (8) , R. P. Fender (9) , S. Heinz (10) , P. G. Jonker (11) , H. A. Krimm (12) , E. G. Kording (13) , D. Maitra (14) , S. Markoff (15) , M. Middleton (16) , S. Migliari (17) , R. A. Remillard (18) , M. P. Rupen (19, 20) , C. L. Sarazin (21) , A. J. Tetarenko (7) , M. A. P. Torres (22) , V. Tudose (23) , A. K. Tzioumis (24)

1 Curtin University
2 AIM (UMR7158 / UMR_E_9005 / UM_112) - Astrophysique Interprétation Modélisation
3 School of Physics and Astronomy [Southampton]
4 USN - Unité Scientifique de la Station de Nançay
5 IRAP - Institut de recherche en astrophysique et planétologie
6 New York University [Abu Dhabi]
7 Department of Physics [Edmonton]
8 OAB - INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera
9 UGA UFRM - Université Grenoble Alpes - UFR Médecine
10 University of Wisconsin-Madison
11 SRON - SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research
12 GSFC - NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
13 Radboud University [Nijmegen]
14 Wheaton College [Norton]
15 UvA - University of Amsterdam [Amsterdam] = Universiteit van Amsterdam
16 CRUK Medical Oncology Unit
17 University of Barcelona
18 MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
19 NRC Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics
20 NRAO - National Radio Astronomy Observatory [Socorro]
21 LSABM - Laboratoire Sciences Analytiques, Bioanalytiques, et Miniaturisation
22 UNER - Universidad Nacional de Entre Ríos [Argentine]
23 ISS - Institute of Space Science [Bucharest-Măgurele]
24 CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science

MAXI J1836-194 is a Galactic black hole candidate X-ray binary that was discovered in 2011 when it went into outburst. In this paper, we present the full radio monitoring of this system during its 'failed' outburst, in which the source did not complete a full set of state changes, only transitioning as far as the hard intermediate state. Observations with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) and Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) show that the jet properties changed significantly during the outburst. The VLA observations detected linearly polarized emission at a level of similar to 1 per cent early in the outburst, increasing to similar to 3 per cent as the outburst peaked. High-resolution images with the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) show an similar to 15 mas jet along the position angle -21 +/- 2 degrees, in agreement with the electric vector position angle found from our polarization results (-21 +/- 4 degrees), implying that the magnetic field is perpendicular to the jet. Astrometric observations suggest that the system required an asymmetric natal kick to explain its observed space velocity. Comparing quasisimultaneous X-ray monitoring with the 5 GHz VLA observations from the 2011 outburst shows an unusually steep hard-state radio/X-ray correlation of L-R alpha L-X(1.8 +/- 0.2), where L-R and LX denote the radio and X-ray luminosities, respectively. With ATCA and Swift monitoring of the source during a period of re-brightening in 2012, we show that the system lay on the same steep correlation. Due to the low inclination of this system, we then investigate the possibility that the observed correlation may have been steepened by variable Doppler boosting.

Mots clés: X-rays: binaries; radio continuum: stars; proper motions; stars: individual: MAXI J1836; 194; ISM: jets and outflows

Domaines: Planète et Univers [physics]

T. D. Russell, J. C. A. Miller-Jones, P. A. Curran, R. Soria, D. Altamirano, et al.. Radio monitoring of the hard state jets in the 2011 outburst of MAXI J1836-194. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2015, 450 (2), pp.1745-1759. ⟨10.1093/mnras/stv723⟩. ⟨insu-01182182⟩