An Ejection Event Captured by VLBI During the Outburst of Swift J1727.8$-$1613

TL;DR

This study captured a black hole jet ejection event in Swift J1727.8$-$1613 using VLBI, revealing a large radio flare and providing insights into jet dynamics during an outburst.

Contribution

First VLBI observation of a black hole ejection event during an outburst, demonstrating the evolution and expansion of radio components with high angular resolution.

Findings

Detected a large-amplitude radio flare consistent with an ejection event

Measured an initial angular separation speed of 30 mas/day between components

Observed linear expansion of fitted sizes indicating component separation

Abstract

We observed a newly-discovered Galactic black hole X-ray binary Swift J1727.8$-$1613 with the European Very Long Baseline Interferometry Network (EVN) at 5 GHz. The observation was conducted immediately following a radio quenching event detected by the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA). The visibility amplitude evolution over time reveals a large-amplitude radio flare and is consistent with an ejection event. The data can be interpreted either as a stationary component (i.e., the radio core) and a moving blob, or as two blobs moving away from the core symmetrically in opposite directions. The initial angular separation speed of the two components was estimated to 30 mas d^{-1}. We respectively fitted a single circular Gaussian model component to each of 14 sliced visibility datasets. For the case of including only European baselines, during the final hour of the EVN observation, the fitted sizes exhibited linear expansion, indicating that the measured sizes were dominated by the angular separation of the two components. The 6-h EVN observation took place in a rising phase of an even larger 4-day-long radio flare, implying that the ejection events were quite frequent and therefore continuous radio monitoring is necessary to correctly estimate the power of the transient jet. Combined with X-ray monitoring data, the radio quenching and subsequent flares/ejections were likely driven by instabilities in the inner hot accretion disk.