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S. Markoff, M. A. Nowak (MIT Center for Space Research), J. Wilms (University of Warwick)
The hard state of X-ray binaries (XRBs) is associated with a hard power law spectrum in the X-ray band, generally modeled via inverse Comptonization of thermal disk photons by a corona. This state is also associated with compact, continuous jets whose radio synchrotron emission is correlated with the hard X-rays. The exact nature of this relationship is still under debate, and an effective way of addressing this question is to model the entire broadband spectrum self-consistently. Depending on the location of the optically thick-to-thin break and the emitting particle distribution, jet synchrotron radiation can contribute significantly to the X-ray band, in addition to synchrotron self-Compton emission from near the base of the jets. We have imported our jet models into X-ray data analysis software to allow the simultaneous fitting of radio and IR data along with the traditional X-ray bands. We present the fits to broadband simultaneous data sets, including X-ray data from the Rossi XTE mission, for several XRBs, including Cyg X-1 and GX 339-4. Our best results show contributions from both direct synchrotron radiation as well as a strong SSC component. With the addition of line and reflection features, jet models provide as good a description of the X-ray data as thermal Comptonization models, while also addressing the radio/IR components. S.M. is supported by an NSF Astronomy & Astrophysics postdoctoral fellowship.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: sera@space.mit.edu
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 #3
© 2004. The American Astronomical Soceity.