Bibcode
Russell, D. M.; Miller-Jones, J. C. A.; Maccarone, T. J.; Yang, Y. J.; Fender, R. P.; Lewis, F.
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Volume 739, Issue 1, article id. L19 (2011).
Advertised on:
9
2011
Citations
102
Refereed citations
93
Description
We present ultradeep radio observations with the Expanded Very Large
Array of 4U 1957+11, a Galactic black hole (BH) candidate X-ray binary
known to exist in a persistent soft X-ray state. We derive a stringent
upper limit of 11.4 μJy beam-1 (3σ) at 5-7 GHz,
which provides the most rigorous upper limit to date on the presence of
jets in a soft state BH X-ray binary (BHXB). X-ray, UV, and optical
fluxes obtained within a few weeks of the radio data can be explained by
thermal emission from the disk. At this X-ray luminosity, a hard state
BHXB that follows the established empirical radio-X-ray correlation
would be at least 330-810 times brighter at radio frequencies, depending
on the distance to 4U 1957+11. This jet quenching of >2.5 orders of
magnitude is greater than some models predict and implies that the jets
are prevented from being launched altogether in the soft state. 4U
1957+11 is also more than one order of magnitude fainter than the
faintest of the "radio-quiet" population of hard state BHs. In addition,
we show that, on average, soft state stellar-mass BHs probably have
fainter jets than most active galactic nuclei in a state equivalent to
the soft state. These results have implications for the conditions
required for powerful, relativistic jets to form and provide a new
empirical constraint for time- and accretion mode-dependent jet models,
furthering our understanding of jet production and accretion onto BHs.