December 5, 1995
The ``low'' (hard or ``non-thermal'') state of black hole candidates is sometimes modelled via an optically thick, hot Compton cloud that obscures a softer input source such as an accretion disk. In these models the observed output spectra consist entirely of photons reprocessed by the cloud, making it difficult to extract information about the input spectra. Recently Miller (1995) has argued that the Fourier phase (or time) lag between hard and soft X-ray photons in actuality represents the phase lags intrinsic to the input source, modulo a multiplicative factor. The phase lags thus would be a probe of the input photon source. In this paper we examine this claim and find that, although true for the limited parameter space considered by Miller, the intrinsic phase lag disappears whenever the output photon energy is much greater than the input photon energy. The remaining time lags represent a ``shelf'' due to differences between mean diffusion times across the cloud. As pointed out by Miller, the amplitude of this shelf -- which is present even when the intrinsic time lags remain -- is indicative of the size and temperature of the Compton cloud and is a function of the two energies being compared. However, we find that with previous instruments such as Ginga the shelf, if present, was likely obscured by counting noise. A more sensitive measure of Compton cloud parameters may be obtainable from the coherence function, which is derived from the amplitude of the Fourier cross power spectral density. This function has been seen to exponentially decrease at high Fourier frequencies in Cygnus X-1. Coherence loss is characteristic of Compton clouds that undergo large variations of size and/or temperature on time scales longer than about 10 seconds. We argue that observing phase lags and coherence
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October 8, 1998
We exhibit, by compiling all data sets we can acquire, that the Fourier frequency dependent hard X-ray lags, first observed in the analysis of aperiodic variability of the light curves of the black hole candidate Cygnus X-1, appear to be a property shared by several other accreting black hole candidate sources and also by the different spectral states of this source. We then present both analytic and numerical models of these time lags resulting by the process of Comptonizati...
December 7, 1997
There have been a number of recent spectral models that have been successful in reproducing the observed X-ray spectra of galactic black hole candidates (GBHC). However, there still exists controversy over such issues as: what are the sources of hard radiation, what is the system's geometry, is the accretion efficient or inefficient, etc. A potentially powerful tool for distinguishing among these possibilities, made possible by the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE), is the v...
December 17, 1997
The Fourier frequency dependent hard X-ray lag, first discovered from the analysis of aperiodic variability of the light curves of the black hole candidate Cygnus X-1, turns out to be a property shared by several other accreting compact sources. We show that the lag can be explained in terms of Comptonization process in coronae of hot electrons with inhomogeneous density distributions. The density profile of a corona, like the optical depth and electron temperature, can signi...
March 18, 1997
We present calculations of the time lags and the coherence function of X-ray photons for a novel model of radiation emission from accretion powered, high-energy sources. Our model involves only Comptonization of soft photons injected near the compact object in an extended but non-uniform atmosphere around the compact object. Our results show that this model produces time lags between the hard and soft bands of the X-ray spectrum which increase with Fourier period, in agreemen...
October 16, 1997
In an effort to model the observed energy spectrum of Cygnus X-1 as well as its hard X-ray lag by Comptonization in inhomogeneous clouds of hot electrons with spherical geometry and various radial density profiles we discovered that: 1) Plasma clouds with different density profiles will lead to different Comptonization energy spectra even though they have the same optical depth and temperature. On the other hand, clouds with different optical depths can produce the same energ...
January 6, 2000
We report the results from measuring the phase lag and coherence function of X-ray emission from black hole candidate (BHC) XTE J1550-564. These X-ray temporal properties have been recognized to be increasingly important in providing important diagnostics of the dynamics of accretion flows around black holes. For XTE J1550-564, we found significant hard lag --- the X-ray variability in high energy bands {\em lags} behind that in low energy bands --- associated both with broad...
February 7, 1997
We report the results from our timing analysis of 15 RXTE observations of Cygnus X-1 throughout its 1996 spectral transitions. The entire period can be divided into 3 distinct phases: (1) transition from the hard to soft state, (2) soft state, and (3) transition from the soft state back to the hard state. The observed X-ray properties in phases 1 and 3 are remarkably similar, suggesting that the same physical processes are likely involved in triggering such transitions. The p...
February 18, 2014
We present the most extensive analysis of Fourier-based X-ray timing properties of the black hole binary Cygnus X-1 to date, based on 12 years of bi-weekly monitoring with RXTE from 1999 to 2011. Our aim is a comprehensive study of timing behavior across all spectral states, including the elusive transitions and extreme hard and soft states. We discuss the dependence of the timing properties on spectral shape and photon energy, and study correlations between Fourier-frequency...
February 19, 2001
I review the temporal/spectral data of accreting black hole sources paying most attention to the properties of the temporal variability such as photon energy dependent auto- and cross-correlation functions, average shot profiles and hardness ratios, and the Fourier frequency dependent time/phase lags. These statistics characterize spectral changes at short time scales that are otherwise impossible to study by direct spectral analysis. The data provide strong constraints on th...
February 28, 2000
Accreting black holes and neutron stars in their hard (low) state show not only very similar X/gamma-ray spectra but also that the behaviour of their light curves is quite similar which can be quantified as having similar power-density spectra and Fourier-frequency-dependent time/phase lags. Taken together this argues for a common mechanism of the X/gamma-ray production in these objects. This mechanism is probably a property of the accretion flow only since it does not depend...