# The 2017 Failed Outburst of GX 339-4: Relativistic X-ray Reflection near the Black Hole Revealed by NuSTAR and Swift Spectroscopy

## TL;DR

This study analyzes the 2017-2018 outburst of GX 339-4 using NuSTAR and Swift data, revealing relativistic X-ray reflection features and a nearly disk-truncated inner radius, enhancing understanding of accretion physics near black holes.

## Contribution

It introduces dual-lamppost relativistic reflection modeling to better interpret X-ray spectra of black hole binaries during low luminosity states.

## Key findings

- Detection of both broad and narrow reflection components.
- Inner disk radius close to the black hole, indicating minimal truncation.
- Dual-lamppost model fits the data better than standard models.

## Abstract

We report on the spectroscopic analysis of the black hole binary GX 339-4 during its recent 2017-2018 outburst, observed simultaneously by the Swift and NuSTAR observatories. Although during this particular outburst the source failed to make state transitions, and despite Sun constraints during the peak luminosity, we were able to trigger four different observations sampling the evolution of the source in the hard state. We show that even for the lowest luminosity observations the NuSTAR spectra show clear signatures of X-ray reprocessing (reflection) in an accretion disk. Detailed analysis of the highest signal-to-noise spectra with our family of relativistic reflection models RELXILL indicates the presence of both broad and narrow reflection components. We find that a dual-lamppost model provides a superior fit when compared to the standard single lamppost plus distant neutral reflection. In the dual lamppost model two sources at different heights are placed on the rotational axis of the black hole, suggesting that the narrow component of the Fe K emission is likely to originate in regions far away in the disk, but still significantly affected by its rotational motions. Regardless of the geometry assumed, we find that the inner edge of the accretion disk reaches a few gravitational radii in all our fits, consistent with previous determinations at similar luminosity levels. This confirms a very low degree of disk truncation for this source at luminosities above ~1% Eddington. Our estimates of Rin reinforces the suggested behavior for an inner disk that approaches the inner-most regions as the luminosity increases in the hard state.