Testing EMRI models for Quasi-Periodic Eruptions with 3.5 years of monitoring eRO-QPE1
arxiv(2024)
摘要
Quasi-Periodic Eruptions (QPEs) are luminous X-ray outbursts recurring on
hour timescales, observed from the nuclei of a growing handful of nearby
low-mass galaxies. Their physical origin is still debated, and usually modeled
as (a) accretion disk instabilities or (b) interaction of a supermassive black
hole (SMBH) with a lower mass companion in an extreme mass-ratio inspiral
(EMRI). EMRI models can be tested with several predictions related to the
short- and long-term behavior of QPEs. In this study, we report on the ongoing
3.5-year NICER and XMM-Newton monitoring campaign of eRO-QPE1, which is known
to exhibit erratic QPEs that have been challenging for the simplest EMRI models
to explain. We report 1) complex, non-monotonic evolution in the long-term
trends of QPE energy output and inferred emitting area; 2) the disappearance of
the QPEs (within NICER detectability) in October 2023, then reappearance by
January 2024 at a luminosity ∼100x fainter (and temperature ∼3x
cooler) than initial discovery; 3) radio non-detections with MeerKAT and VLA
observations partly contemporaneous with our NICER campaign (though not during
outbursts); and 4) the presence of a possible ∼6-day modulation of the QPE
timing residuals, which aligns with the expected nodal precession timescale of
the underlying accretion disk. Our results tentatively support EMRI-disk
collision models powering the QPEs, and we demonstrate that the timing
modulation of QPEs may be used to jointly constrain the SMBH spin and disk
density profile.
更多查看译文
AI 理解论文
溯源树
样例
生成溯源树,研究论文发展脉络
Chat Paper
正在生成论文摘要