X-ray and Optical Monitoring of State Transitions in MAXI J1820+070

TL;DR

This study presents comprehensive X-ray and optical observations of MAXI J1820+070 during its 2018 outburst, revealing complex state transitions, spectral evolution, and jet contributions, challenging simple accretion rate models.

Contribution

It provides detailed spectral and luminosity analysis across states, confirming that state transitions are not solely driven by accretion rate and highlighting jet influence on optical emission.

Findings

Spectral softening occurred only in the second flux rise.

Inner disk remained stable during the high/soft state.

Jets significantly contributed to optical emission in the low/hard state.

Abstract

We report results from the X-ray and optical monitoring of the black hole candidate MAXI J1820+070 (=ASSASN-18ey) over the entire period of its outburst from March to October 2018.In this outburst, the source exhibited two sets of `fast rise and slow decay'-type long-term flux variations. We found that the 1--100 keV luminosities at two peaks were almost the same, although a significant spectral softening was only seen in the second flux rise. This confirms that the state transition from the low/hard state to the high/soft state is not determined by the mass accretion rate alone. The X-ray spectrum was reproduced with the disk blackbody emission and its Comptonization, and the long-term spectral variations seen in this outburst were consistent with a disk truncation model. The Comptonization component, with a photon index of 1.5-1.9 and electron temperature of ~>40 keV, was dominant during the low/hard state periods, and its contribution rapidly decreased (increased) during the spectral softening (hardening). During the high/soft state period, in which the X-ray spectrum became dominated by the disk blackbody component, the inner disk radius was almost constant, suggesting that the standard disk was present down to the inner most stable circular orbit. The long-term evolution of optical and X-ray luminosities and their correlation suggest that the jets substantially contributed to the optical emission in the low/hard state, while they are quenched and the outer disk emission dominated the optical flux in the intermediate state and the high/soft state.