# Correlation among QPO frequencies and Quiescence-state Duration in Black Hole Candidate GRS 1915+105

## 1 Introduction

X-ray transient source GRS 1915+105 in our galaxy exhibits various types of quasi-periodic oscillations with frequencies ranging from $`0.0010.01Hz`$ to $`67Hz`$ (Morgan et al, 1997; Paul et al. 1998; Yadav et al. 1999). The object is sometimes in a flaring state with regular and quasi-regular bursts and quiescences, while at some other time it is in usual low-hard and high-soft states. While the light curves look very chaotic with no apparent similarity between observations in two different days, some of the features are classifiable: (a) low-frequency QPO ($`\nu _L0.0010.01`$Hz) is due to the transition between burst and quiescence states (which we term as ‘on’-state and ‘off’-state respectively) and vice versa; (b) the intermediate frequency QPO ($`\nu _I110`$Hz) could be due to oscillations of shocks located at tens to hundreds of Schwarzschild radii $`R_g`$ ($`=2GM/c^2`$ is the Schwarzschild radius. Here, $`M`$ is the mass of the black hole, $`G`$, and $`c`$ are the gravitational constant and velocity of light respectively) and (c) very high frequency QPO ($`\nu _H67`$Hz), if at all present, could be due to oscillations of the shocks located at several $`R_g`$. $`\nu _I`$ is generally observed during quiescence states. Typically, a shock located at $`R_s`$ (unless mentioned otherwise, measured hereafter in units of $`R_g`$), produces an oscillation of frequency,

$$\nu _I=\frac{1}{t_{ff}}\frac{1}{R}R_s^\alpha \frac{cv_0}{R_g}s$$
$`(1)`$   
where, $`R`$ is the compression ratio of the gas at the shock. Here we used a result of Molteni, Sponholz & Chakrabarti (1996, hereafter referred to as MSC96) which states that the time-period of QPO oscillation is comparable to the infall time ($`t_{infall}=t_{ff}RR_s^{3/2}`$) in the post-shock region. However, we assume now that the post-shock velocity is not necessarily $`R_s^{1/2}`$ dependent as in a free fall but could be slowly varying, especially when angular momentum is high. In this case, $`t_{infall}R_s^\alpha `$. Clearly, $`\alpha 3/2`$ for a low angular momentum freely falling matter and $`\alpha 1`$ for a post-shock flow of constant velocity $`v_0c/R`$. Here $`v_0`$ is a dimensionless quantity which is exactly unity for a free-fall gas. For a gas of $`\gamma =4/3`$, $`R7`$ and for $`\gamma =5/3`$, $`R4`$, when the shock is strong. Thus, for instance, for a $`\nu _I=6`$Hz, $`R_s38`$ for $`M=10M_{}`$ and $`\gamma =4/3`$. For $`\nu _H=67`$Hz, $`R_s8`$ for the same parameters. MSC96 and Chakrabarti & Titarchuk (1995, hereafter CT95) postulated that since black hole QPOs show a large amount of photon flux variation, they cannot be explained simply by assuming some inhomogeinities, or perturbations in the flow.

If the QPOs are really due to shock oscillations, they should almost disappear at low energy soft X-rays, since these X-rays are produced in pre-shock flow which does not participate in large-scale oscillations. Second, a shock-compressed gas with compression ratio $`R>1`$, must produce outflows or extended corona which pass through sonic points located at at $`R_c=f_0R_s/2`$, where $`f_0=R^2/(R1)`$, if the flow is assumed to be isothermal till $`R_c`$ (Chakrabarti 1998, 1999, hereafter C98 and C99 respectively). In this solution the location of the sonic point $`R_c`$ and ratio between outflow and inflow rates are functions of the compression ratio $`R`$ of the shock alone. Till the sonic point $`R_c`$, matter is subsonic and this subsonic volume is filled in a time of (C99),

$$t_{fill}=\frac{4\pi R_c^3<\rho >}{3\dot{M}_{out}},$$
$`(2)`$   
where, $`<\rho >`$ is the average density of the sonic sphere, and $`\dot{M}_{out}`$ is the outflow rate. The Compton cooling becomes catastrophic when $`<\rho >R_ck_{es}\stackrel{>}{}1`$, $`k_{es}=0.4`$ is the Thomson scattering opacity. Thus the duration of the off-state (i.e., duration between the end of a burst and the beginning of the next burst) is given by,

$$t_{off}=\frac{4\pi R_c^2}{3\dot{M}_{out}k_{es}}.$$
$`(3)`$   
We use now a simple relation between inflow and outflow rates given by (C98, C99),

$$\frac{\dot{M}_{out}}{\dot{M}_{in}}=R_{\dot{m}}=\frac{\mathrm{\Theta }_{out}}{\mathrm{\Theta }_{in}}\frac{R}{4}[\frac{R^2}{R1}]^{3/2}exp(\frac{3}{2}\frac{R^2}{R1})$$
$`(4)`$   
where, $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{in}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{out}`$ are the solid angles of the inflow and the outflow respectively. Because of the uncertainties in $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{in}`$, $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{out}`$ and $`\dot{M}_{in}`$ (subscript ‘in’ refers to the accretion rate) we define a dimensionless parameter,

$$\mathrm{\Theta }_{\dot{M}}=\frac{\mathrm{\Theta }_{out}}{\mathrm{\Theta }_{in}}\frac{\dot{M}_{in}}{\dot{M}_{Edd}}.$$
$`(5)`$   
where, $`\dot{M}_{Edd}`$ is the Eddington rate. Using Eqs. (4-5), we get the following expression for $`t_{off}`$ as,

$$t_{off}=\frac{10.47}{(R1)^{1/2}}\frac{R_s^2R_g^2exp(f_0\frac{3}{2})}{\dot{M}_{Edd}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\dot{M}}}s.$$
$`(6)`$   
Or, eliminating shock location $`R_s`$ using eq. (1) and $`\alpha =3/2`$, $`v_0=1`$, we obtain,

$$t_{off}=14.1\frac{exp(f_0\frac{3}{2})}{R^{4/3}(R1)^{1/2}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\dot{M}}}(\frac{M}{10M_{}})^{1/3}\nu _I^{4/3}s$$
$`(7)`$   
For an average shock of strength $`2.5\stackrel{<}{}R\stackrel{<}{}3.3`$, the result is insensitive to the compression ratio. Using average value of $`R=2.9`$ and for $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{\dot{M}}0.1`$ (which corresponds to $`0.1`$ Eddington rate for $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{out}\mathrm{\Theta }_{in}`$) we get,

$$t_{off}=461.5(\frac{0.1}{\mathrm{\Theta }_{\dot{M}}})(\frac{M}{10M_{}})^{1/3}\nu _I^{4/3}s.$$
$`(8)`$   
Thus, the duration of the off-state must go down rapidly as the QPO frequency increases if the flow geometry and the net accretion rate remains fixed. When one considers a constant velocity post-shock flow, $`\alpha =1`$, and $`v_0=0.066`$ (chosen so as to keep the same numerical coefficient as in eq. 8) the above equation is changed to,

$$t_{off}=461.5(\frac{0.1}{\mathrm{\Theta }_{\dot{M}}})(\frac{M}{10M_{}})^1(\frac{v_0}{0.066})^2\nu _I^2s.$$
$`(9)`$   
Interestingly, $`v_0=0.066`$ (i.e., a constant velocity of seven percent of the velocity of light) is very reasonable for a black hole accretion.

If the hot post-shock gas of height $`R_s`$ intercepts $`n`$ soft photons per second, from the pre-shock Keplerian component (CT95), it should intercept about $`nf_0^2/4`$ soft photons per second when the sonic sphere of size $`R_c`$ is filled in. Thus, the photon flux in the burst state should be about $`f_0^2/4\stackrel{>}{}4`$ times larger compared to the photon flux in off-state. Depending on the degree of flaring, and the fact that the wind is bent backward due to centrifugal force, the interception may be higher.

Since $`\nu _L`$ is basically due to recurrences of on and off-states, it is clear that $`\nu _L1/<t_{off}+t_{on}>`$. Here, $`t_{on}`$ is the duration of the burst state which may be very small for extremely regular (spiky) bursts reported by in Taam, Chen & Swank (1997) and Yadav et al. 1999. In this case,

$$\nu _L=0.0022(\frac{\mathrm{\Theta }_{\dot{M}}}{0.1})(\frac{10M_{}}{M})\nu _I^2\mathrm{Hz}.$$
$`(10)`$   
When on-state has a non-negligible duration ($`t_{on}0`$), it is found to be directly related to the $`t_{off}`$ (Belloni et al., 1997; Yadav et al. 1999). Assuming $`t_{on}t_{off}`$, the $`\nu _L`$ would be less by a factor of two when on states are broad. When the burst is very regular but ‘spiky’ (i.e., with momentary on-state), $`t_{on}0`$. The presence of $`\nu _L`$ for these regular ‘spiky’ bursts are reported in Manickam and Chakrabarti (1999a)

Thus, if our shock oscillation solution for QPO is correct, the observations must pass all the following tests: (a) the QPO in the off-state must disappear at low energies, (b) the QPO must generally be absent in the on-state, when the sonic sphere is cooled down, (c) the intermediate QPO frequency must be correlated with $`t_{off}`$ as in Eqs. (8-9) and (d) the photon flux must jump at least a factor of $`4`$ or more when going from quiescence to burst state. In addition, (e) lowest frequency $`\nu _L`$ observed must be correlated to the intermediate QPO frequency $`\nu _I`$ by eq. (10). There are uncertainties regarding the inflow velocity and actual volume-filling time, but we expect that above relations to be satisfied in general.

In the present Letter we show that observations do pass through these tests and therefore the shock oscillation model may be the correct picture. In the next Section, we present detailed analysis of some of the observational results on GRS1915+105 available in public archive and show how they point to the shock oscillation model. Finally in §3, we make concluding remarks.

## 2 Observational Results

Figure 1 shows a light curve of the first phase of observation of June 18th, 1997, on the right panel. The average count rate (per second) vary from around $`5000`$ in the off-state to about $`24,000`$ in the on-state. The ratio of the fluxes is about $`5`$. The duration of these states vary chaotically. At the mean location of a few off-states (arrows on right axis), observation time is marked in seconds. For each of these off-states, the power density spectrum (PDS) in arbitrary units is drawn in the left panel. The most prominent QPO frequencies ($`\nu _I`$ in our notation) are connected by a dashed curve just to indicate its variation with time. There are some weaker peaks which follow the short dashed curve, indicating that they may be higher harmonics. Observations of this kind for several other days show similar variations in QPO frequencies and details are presented elsewhere (Manickam & Chakrabarti, 1999ab).

In Figure 2, variation of $`\nu _I`$ with the duration $`t_{off}`$ of the off-states (triangles) for the whole observation period on June 18th, 1997 in the log-log scale. Observational results from several other days (May 26th, 1997; June 9th, 1997; June 25, 1997; October 7th, 1996; October 25th, 1996) are also plotted on the same curve with circles, filled squares, squares, filled circles and stars respectively. We did not put error bars since in duration scale is it uniformly $`\pm 2`$ seconds, and in frequency scale error bar is decided by the chosen bin-size while obtaining the PDS (In our analysis it remains around 0.15-0.25 Hz, increasing monotonically with QPO frequency). Times at which the photon flux is halved during the on-to-off and off-to-on transitions are taken respectively to be the beginning and the end of an off-state. Equation (9) is plotted in dashed lines with (from uppermost to the lowermost line) $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{\dot{M}}=0.0034`$, $`0.0123`$, $`0.0163`$, $`0.028`$, $`0.0293`$ and $`0.043`$ respectively indicating a slow variation of the accretion rate, provided the collimation property remains the same. Two dotted curves, on the other hand, represent eq. (8), with $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{\dot{M}}=0.06`$ (top) and $`0.093`$ (bottom) respectively. We find that the inverse-squared law (eq. 9) may be a better fit to the observations. Since on Oct. 7th, 1996 the points are lumped closed to the lower right corner, not much could be said about whether it follows our relation or not, but it is to be noted that its general behaviour (low frequency, high duration) follows our result for any reasonable $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{\dot{M}}`$.

Table 1 shows the variation of the $`\nu _I`$ (taken from Fig. 2) with days of observations. In 3rd column, the expected $`\nu _L`$ has been put ($`\nu _L/2`$ for Oct. 7 and June 18 results as they show $`t_{on}t_{off}`$). In 4th Column, the observed $`\nu _L`$ is given. Generally, what we observe is that, when the drift of $`\nu _I`$ is large, PDS around $`\nu _L`$ is also broad In any case, observed $`\nu _L`$ agrees with our expectations.

Figure 3 shows the PDS of the off-state centered at 1576s (see Fig. 1) of the June 18th observation. The energy range is given in each panel Clearly, QPO disappears completely at low energies, exactly as is expected in the shock oscillation model (MSC96) though QPO frequencies, when present, seem to be energy independent (see, Manickam & Chakrabarti, 1999b for details). The pre-shock flow which emits soft radiation participates little in the oscillation as the fractional change in the Keplerian disk due to shock oscillation is negligible. On the contrary, the fractional change in the size of the post-shock flow during the oscillation is large. Thus, the flux of hard X-rays oscillates as the size of the post-shock region oscillates. This is the cause of QPO in our model. In on-states, when they exist, the QPO is found to be very weak.

## 3 Discussion and Conclusions

In this Letter, we have discovered a relation between the QPO frequency in 1-10Hz range with the duration of the quiescence state at which the QPO is observed. We also derived a relation between the low QPO frequency and the intermediate QPO frequency. We analyzed several days of RXTE observations and showed that our relations are satisfied, especially when the average bulk velocity in the post-shock region is constant. We showed that the QPO disappears in the low energy, but is very strong in high energies. The photon flux is found to fluctuate, typically by a factor of $`4`$ or more, indicating that a vertically inflated post-shock region is responsible for interception of the soft photons from a Keplerian disk. This factor seems to be similar to $`f_0^2/4`$ (C98, C99) for any reasonable compression of the gas, which strengthens our belief that the quasi-periodic cooling of the sonic sphere of the outflow from the post-shock region may be responsible for the rapid transitions between on and off-states. Our computation of the duration of the off-states from this considerations are found to be quite reasonable. We find that for $`\nu ^{4/3}`$ law, $`t_{off}`$ is insensitive to the mass of the black hole while for $`\nu ^2`$ law, $`t_{off}`$ is inversely proportional to the mass. Trudolyubov et al. (1999) recently found the duration of ‘hard’ states varies as $`7/3`$ power of the lowest centroid frequency for a group of data while we find an inverse-squared law when we choose the QPO frequency where the power is strongest.

Although we chose a specific model for the outflow (C99) for concreteness, the physical processes invoked are generic and the explanation should be valid even when other models for outflows are used (except self-similar models). The shock location near the inner edge of the Keplerian disk can drift on viscous time scale (see appendix of CT95 where the transition from Keplerian to sub-Keplerian is plotted as a function of viscosity). The shocks can evacuate the disk, and form once again, very similar to what was seen in the numerical simulation of Ryu et al. (1997). This drift would cause a drift in frequency as Trudolyubov et al. (1999) recently showed (see also, Belloni et al. 1997; Markwardt, Swank & Taam 1999, Muno et al. 1999). Our model invokes also outflows (which we believe form naturally in the post-shock region and from the transition region from Keplerian to a sub-Keplerian flow) which we find useful to explain variations in photon counts between ‘off’ and ‘on’ states.

This work is partly supported by a project (Quasi Periodic Oscillations in Black Hole Candidates) funded by Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). The authors thank NASA for making RXTE data available and ISRO for creating a Data Bank at their Centre where these data are stored.