Using the bispectrum to probe radio X-ray correlations in GRS 1915+105

TL;DR

This study uses bicoherence analysis on GRS 1915+105 observations to explore phase coupling in QPOs, revealing correlations with radio properties and suggesting jet electron cooling as a key physical process.

Contribution

It introduces bicoherence as a tool to differentiate QPO phase coupling patterns and links these patterns to radio emission states and jet physics in GRS 1915+105.

Findings

Different bicoherence patterns correlate with QPO frequency and radio states.

Phase coupling varies between radio quiet, plateau, and steep conditions.

Significant differences in phase lag behavior indicate changing physical mechanisms.

Abstract

We present the results of bicoherence analysis on observations of GRS 1915+105 that exhibit quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs). The bicoherence is a higher order statistic that can be used to probe the relation between the phases of a triplet of Fourier frequencies. Despite showing very similar power spectra, the observations exhibit different patterns in their bicoherence, indicating that the QPOs are phase coupled to the noise in different ways. We show that the bicoherence pattern exhibited correlates with the frequency of the QPO, the hardness ratio, as well as the radio properties of the source. In particular, we find that the nature of phase coupling between the QPO and the high and low frequency broadband components is different between radio quiet, radio plateau and radio steep conditions. We also investigate the phase lag behaviour of observations with QPO frequency above 2Hz that show different bicoherence patterns, and find statistically significant differences between them, indicating a change in the underlying physical mechanism. Finally, we present a scenario whereby the cooling of the jet electrons by soft photons from the accretion disc could explain the observed correlations between the bicoherence and radio properties.