Spectral and timing evolution of GRO J1655-40 during its outburst of 2005

TL;DR

This study analyzes the spectral and timing evolution of GRO J1655-40 during its 2005 outburst, identifying four spectral states, QPO characteristics, and spectral component variations over 150 observations.

Contribution

It provides a detailed, state-wise analysis of spectral and timing properties of GRO J1655-40 during its outburst, including QPO behavior and spectral component evolution.

Findings

Four spectral states identified: hard, soft, very soft, intermediate.

QPOs observed in hard and intermediate states with specific frequency ranges.

Spectral components vary with state, with disk black body dominating in soft states.

Abstract

In a recent outburst which lasted for 260 days, the black hole candidate GRO J1655-40 exhibited a behaviour similar to its last outburst observed almost eight years ago. We analyze a total of 150 observational spells in 122 days of data spreaded over the entire outburst phase of Feb. 2005 to Oct. 2005. From our study, a comprehensive understanding of the detailed behaviour of this black hole candidate has emerged. Based on the degree of importance of the black body and the power-law components we divide the entire episode in four spectral states, namely, hard, soft, very soft and intermediate. Quasi-Periodic oscillations (QPOs) were found in two out of these four states, namely, in the hard and the intermediate states. In the hard state, at the rising phase of the outburst, QPO frequency ranged from 0.034 - 17.78Hz and the spectra was fitted by a disk black body, power-law and iron emission line at 6.2 - 6.5 keV. In the intermediate state, QPOs vary from 13.17Hz to 19.04Hz and the QPO frequency modulation in this state was not significant. The spectra in this state are well fitted by the disk black body and the power-law components. In the hard state of the declining phase of the outburst, we found QPOs of decreasing frequency from 13.14 Hz to 0.034 Hz. The spectra of this state were fitted by a disk black body and power-law components, but in the initial few days a cooler Comptonized component was required for a better fit. In the soft and very soft states, the spectral states are mostly dominated by the strong disk black body component.