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J. Homan (MIT), J.M. Miller (University of Michigan), R. Wijnands (Amsterdam University), W.H.G. Lewin (MIT)
For the current observing cycle (AO10) of RXTE we proposed to observe a black-hole transient in exceptional detail, to answer questions related to General Relativity and the fundamental properties of black-hole states. During the first week of this cycle, in March 2005, our program was triggered by an outburst of the well known black-hole transient GRO J1655-40 that is already lasting for more than eight months. We are observing the source with RXTE twice a day, on average, for a current total of more than 2 Msec, making it by far the best covered black-hole transient outburst ever in X-rays. In this talk we present the first results of a campaign that has shed new light on some properties of black-hole transients. Topics that will be discussed include (1) a clear detection of frequency changes in the high frequency quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs), (2) the evolution of various types of low-frequency QPOs, and (3) the radiative efficiency of the different spectral states. Especially the behavior of the low-frequency QPOs suggests firm links between spectral states that were once thought to have almost no properties in common.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 37 #4
© 2005. The American Astronomical Soceity.