The flickering radio jet from the quiescent black hole X-ray binary A0620-00
Donna L. dePolo, Richard M. Plotkin, James C.A. Miller-Jones, Jay, Strader, Thomas J. Maccarone, Tyrone N. O'Doherty, Laura Chomiuk, Elena Gallo

TL;DR
This study monitors the radio emission from the quiescent black hole binary A0620-00, revealing significant variability and potential fading over years, which impacts understanding of jet behavior and detection in low-luminosity systems.
Contribution
First detailed radio variability study of A0620-00 in quiescence, showing persistent flux, variability patterns, and possible long-term fading, informing models of black hole jet emission.
Findings
A0620-00 detected ~75% of the time with variable flux
Flux follows a lognormal distribution with mean 12.5 μJy
Possible fading of radio emission since 2005
Abstract
Weakly accreting black hole X-ray binaries launch compact radio jets that persist even in the quiescent spectral state, at X-ray luminosities <1e-5 of the Eddington luminosity. However, radio continuum emission has been detected from only a few of these quiescent systems, and little is known about their radio variability. Jet variability can lead to misclassification of accreting compact objects in quiescence, and affects the detectability of black hole X-ray binaries in next-generation radio surveys. Here we present the results of a radio monitoring campaign of A0620-00, one of the best-studied and least-luminous known quiescent black hole X-ray binaries. We observed A0620-00 at 9.8 GHz using the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array on 31 epochs from 2017 to 2020, detecting the source ~75% of the time. We see significant variability over all timescales sampled, and the observed flux…
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Taxonomy
TopicsAstrophysical Phenomena and Observations · Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research
