Investigating the connection between Quasi Periodic Oscillations and spectral components with NuSTAR data of GRS 1915+105

TL;DR

This study explores the link between spectral components and low frequency QPOs in GRS 1915+105 using NuSTAR data, finding that spectral index variation can explain the energy dependence of QPO amplitude.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the energy dependence of QPOs can be reproduced by modeling spectral index variations, providing insights into QPO origin.

Findings

RMS amplitude of QPO increases with energy.

Spectral index variation reproduces observed QPO energy dependence.

Other spectral parameters do not explain the energy dependence.

Abstract

The low frequency quasi periodic oscillations (QPOs) are commonly observed during hard states of black hole binaries. Several studies have established various observational/empirical correlations between spectral parameters and QPO properties, indicating a close link between the two. However, the exact mechanism of generation of QPO is not yet well understood. In this paper, we present our attempts to comprehend the connection between the spectral components and the low frequency QPO observed in GRS 1915+105 using the data from NuSTAR. Detailed spectral modeling as well as the presence of the low frequency QPO and its energy dependence during this observation have been reported by Miller et al. (2013) and Zhang et al. (2015) respectively. We investigate the compatibility of the spectral model and energy dependence of the QPO by simulating light curves in various energy bands for small variation of the spectral parameters. The basic concept here is to establish connection, if any, between the QPO and the variation of either a spectral component or a specific parameter, which in turn can shed some light on the origin of the QPO. We begin with the best fit spectral model of Miller et al. (2013) and simulate the light curve by varying the spectral parameter at frequencies close to the observed QPO frequency in order to generate the simulated QPO. Further we simulate similar light curves in various energy bands in order to reproduce the observed energy dependence of RMS amplitude of the QPO. We find that the observed trend of increasing RMS amplitude with energy can be reproduced qualitatively if the spectral index is assumed to be varying with the phases of the QPO. Variation of any other spectral parameter does not reproduce the observed energy dependence.