Relativistic ejecta from stellar mass black holes: insights from simulations and synthetic radio images

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Savard, Katie, Matthews, James H., Fender, Rob, Heywood, Ian
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Savard, Katie
Matthews, James H.
Fender, Rob
Heywood, Ian
author_facet Savard, Katie
Matthews, James H.
Fender, Rob
Heywood, Ian
contents We present numerical simulations of discrete relativistic ejecta from an X-ray binary (XRB) with initial conditions directly informed by observations. XRBs have been observed to launch powerful discrete plasma ejecta during state transitions, which can propagate up to parsec distances. Understanding these ejection events unveils new understanding of jet-launching, jet power, and jet-ISM interaction among other implications. Multi-frequency quasi-simultaneous radio observations of ejecta from the black hole XRB MAXI J1820+070 produced both size and calorimetry constraints, which we use as initial conditions of a relativistic hydrodynamic simulation. We qualitatively reproduce the observed deceleration of the ejecta in a homogeneous interstellar medium (ISM). Our simulations demonstrate that the ejecta must be denser than the ISM, the ISM be significantly low-density, and the launch be extremely powerful, in order to propagate to the observed distances. The blob propagates and clears out a high-pressure low-density cavity in its wake, providing an explanation for this pre-existing low-density environment, as well as 'bubble-like' environments in the vicinity of XRBs inferred from other studies. As the blob decelerates, we observe the onset of instabilities and a long-lived reverse shock -- these mechanisms convert kinetic to internal energy in the blob, responsible for in-situ particle acceleration. We transform the outputs of our simulation into pseudo-radio images, incorporating the u,v coverage of the MeerKAT and e-MERLIN telescopes from the original observations with real-sky background. Through this, we maximize the interpretability of the results and provide direct comparison to current data, as well as provide prediction capabilities.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_20914
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Relativistic ejecta from stellar mass black holes: insights from simulations and synthetic radio images
Savard, Katie
Matthews, James H.
Fender, Rob
Heywood, Ian
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
We present numerical simulations of discrete relativistic ejecta from an X-ray binary (XRB) with initial conditions directly informed by observations. XRBs have been observed to launch powerful discrete plasma ejecta during state transitions, which can propagate up to parsec distances. Understanding these ejection events unveils new understanding of jet-launching, jet power, and jet-ISM interaction among other implications. Multi-frequency quasi-simultaneous radio observations of ejecta from the black hole XRB MAXI J1820+070 produced both size and calorimetry constraints, which we use as initial conditions of a relativistic hydrodynamic simulation. We qualitatively reproduce the observed deceleration of the ejecta in a homogeneous interstellar medium (ISM). Our simulations demonstrate that the ejecta must be denser than the ISM, the ISM be significantly low-density, and the launch be extremely powerful, in order to propagate to the observed distances. The blob propagates and clears out a high-pressure low-density cavity in its wake, providing an explanation for this pre-existing low-density environment, as well as 'bubble-like' environments in the vicinity of XRBs inferred from other studies. As the blob decelerates, we observe the onset of instabilities and a long-lived reverse shock -- these mechanisms convert kinetic to internal energy in the blob, responsible for in-situ particle acceleration. We transform the outputs of our simulation into pseudo-radio images, incorporating the u,v coverage of the MeerKAT and e-MERLIN telescopes from the original observations with real-sky background. Through this, we maximize the interpretability of the results and provide direct comparison to current data, as well as provide prediction capabilities.
title Relativistic ejecta from stellar mass black holes: insights from simulations and synthetic radio images
topic High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.20914