arXiv subjects

Sandip K. Chakrabarti

Publications and source records attributed to Sandip K. Chakrabarti.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

arXiv2014

Is Compton cooling sufficient to explain evolution of observed quasi-periodic oscillations in Outburst sources?

In outburst sources, quasi-periodic oscillation (QPO) frequency is known to evolve in a certain way: in the rising phase, it monotonically goes up till a soft intermediate state is achieved. In the propagating oscillatory shock model, oscillation of the Compton cloud is thought to cause QPOs. Thus, in order to increase QPO frequency, Compton cloud must collapse steadily in the rising phase. In decline phases, exactly opposite should be true. We investigate cause of this evolution of the Compton cloud. The same viscosity parameter which increases the Keplerian disk rate, also moves the inner edge of the Keplerian component, thereby reducing the size of the Compton cloud and reducing the cooling time scale. We show that cooling of the Compton cloud by inverse Comptonization is enough for it to collapse sufficiently so as to explain the QPO evolution. In the Two Component Advective Flow (TCAF) configuration of Chakrabarti-Titarchuk, centrifugal force induced shock represents boundary of the Compton cloud. We take the rising phase of 2010 outburst of Galactic black hole candidate H~1743-322 and find an estimation of variation of $α$ parameter of the sub-Keplerian flow to be monotonically rising from $0.0001$ to $0.02$, well within the range suggested by magneto-rotational instability. We also estimate the inward velocity of the Compton cloud to be a few meters/second which is comparable to what is found in several earlier studies of our group by empirically fitting the shock locations with the time of observations.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2014

Numerical Simulations of a Two Component Advective Flow for The Study of the Spectral and Timing Properties of Black Holes

Two component advective flows are the most physical accretion disks which arise from theoretical consideration. Since viscosity is the determining factor, we investigate the effects of viscous stresses on accretion flows around a nonrotating black hole. As a consequence of angular momentum transfer by viscosity in an accretion flow, the angular momentum distribution is modified. We include cooling effects and found that a Keplerian disk is produced on the equatorial plane and the flow above and below remains sub Keplerian. This gives a complete picture to date, of the formation of a Two component advective flow around a black hole.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2014

Inference on accretion flow dynamics using TCAF solution from the analysis of spectral evolution of H 1743-322 during 2010 outburst

We study accretion flow dynamics of Galactic transient black hole candidate (BHC) H 1743-322 during its 2010 outburst by analyzing spectral data using Two Component (Keplerian and sub-Keplerian) Advective Flow (TCAF) solution, after its inclusion in XSPEC as a local model. We compare our TCAF solution fitted results with combined disk black body and power-law model fitted results and find a similar smooth variation of thermal (Keplerian or disk black body) and non-thermal (power-law or sub-Keplerian) fluxes/rates in two types of model fits. For a spectral analysis, 2.5-25 keV spectral data from RXTE PCA instrument are used. From the TCAF solution fit, accretion flow parameters, such as Keplerian rate, sub-Keplerian rate, location of centrifugal pressure supported shock and strength of the shock are extracted, thus providing a deeper understanding of accretion process and properties of accretion disks around BHC H 1743-322 during its X-ray outburst. Based on the halo to disk accretion rate ratio (ARR), shock properties, accretion rates and nature of quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs, if observed) entire outburst is classified into four different spectral states, such as, hard, hard-intermediate, soft-intermediate, and soft. From time variation of intrinsic flow parameters it appears that their evolutions in decline phase do not retrace path of rising phase. Since our current model does not include magnetic fields, spectral turnover at energies beyond 500-600 keV cannot be explained.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2014

Geometry variation of accretion disks of Compact Objects

The Temporal and Spectral variations of black hole candidates during outbursts have been reported in several publications. It is well known that during an outburst, the source becomes soft in the first few days, and then returns to the hard state after a few weeks or months. In the present paper, we show the variation of Comptonization Efficiency (CE), obtained from the ratio of the black body photon number to the power-law photon number, as a function of time in several outbursts. Since the power-law photons are generated through inverse-Comptonization of the intercepted soft photons, the CE is a measure of the geometry of the Compton cloud. Our investigation indicated that all the outbursts starts with a large CE and becomes very small after a few days, when the Compton cloud becomes very small to intercept any significant number of soft photons. CE returns back to a larger value at the end of the outburst.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2014

A Study of the Variation of Geometry of Accretion Flows of Compact Objects through Timing and Spectral Analysis of Their Outbursts

Temporal and spectral variations of black hole candidates during outbursts have been reported in several publications. It is well known that during an outburst, source becomes softer in first few days, and then returns to hard states after a few weeks or months. In the present paper, we show variation of Comptonization Efficiency (CE), defined to be the ratio of number of power-law photons and number of soft photons injected to into the Compton cloud, as a function of time in several outbursts. Since power-law photons are generated through inverse-Comptonization of the intercepted soft photons, CE is a measure of geometry of Compton cloud. Our investigation indicates that all outbursts start with a large CE and becomes very small after a few days, when the Compton cloud becomes small enough to intercept any significant number of soft photons. CE returns back to a larger value at the end of outburst. We show co-variation of count rates, frequency of quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs), photon index and CE and establish a general trend of disk geometry variation during outbursts in all systems under consideration.a

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2014

Evidence of variation of the accretion flow geometry in GRS 1915+105 from IXAE and RXTE data

The Galactic microquasar GRS 1915+105 exhibits various types of light curves. There is, however, no understanding of when a certain type of light curve will be exhibited and only in a handful of cases, the transitions from one type to another have actually been observed. We study the detailed spectral properties in these cases to show that that different classes have different ratio of the power-law photon and the blackbody photon. Since the power-law photons are from the Compton cloud, and the intensity of the power-law photon component depends on the degree of interception of the soft photons by the Compton cloud, we conclude that not only the accretion rate, but the accretion flow geometry must also change during a class transition.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2014

Implementation of Two Component Advective Flow Solution in XSPEC

Spectral and Temporal properties of black hole candidates can be explained reasonably well using Chakrabarti-Titarchuk solution of two component advective flow (TCAF). This model requires two accretion rates, namely, the Keplerian disk accretion rate and the halo accretion rate, the latter being composed of a sub-Keplerian, low angular momentum flow which may or may not develop a shock. In this solution, the relevant parameter is the relative importance of the halo (which creates the Compton cloud region) rate with respect to the Keplerian disk rate (soft photon source). Though this model has been used earlier to manually fit data of several black hole candidates quite satisfactorily, for the first time, we made it user friendly by implementing it into XSPEC software of GSFC/NASA. This enables any user to extract physical parameters of the accretion flows, such as two accretion rates, the shock location, the shock strength etc. for any black hole candidate. We provide some examples of fitting a few cases using this model. Most importantly, unlike any other model, we show that TCAF is capable of predicting timing properties from the spectral fits, since in TCAF, a shock is responsible for deciding spectral slopes as well as QPO frequencies.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2014

Spectroscopic characteristics of the cyanomethyl anion and its deuterated derivatives

It has long been suggested that CH2CN- might be a carrier of one of the many poorly characterized diffuse interstellar bands. In this paper, our aim is to study various forms of CH2CN in the interstellar medium. Aim of this paper is to predict spectroscopic characteristics of various forms of CH2CN and its deuterated derivatives. Moreover, we would like to model the interstellar chemistry for making predictions for the column densities of such species around dark cloud conditions. A detailed quantum chemical simulations to present the spectral properties of various forms of the CH2CN. MP2 theory along with the aug-CCPVTZ basis set is used to obtain different spectroscopic constants of CH2CN-, CHDCN- and CD2CN- in the gas phase which are essential to predict rotational spectra of these species. We performed quantum chemical calculation to find out energetically the most stable spin states for these species. We have computed IR and electronic absorption spectra for different forms of CH2CN. Moreover, we have also implemented a large gas-grain chemical network to predict the column densities of various forms of the cyanomethyl radical and its related species. In order to mimic physical conditions around a dense cloud region, the variation of the visual extinction parameters are considered with respect to the hydrogen number density of the simulated cloud. Our quantum chemical calculation reveals that the singlet spin state is the most stable form of cyanomethyl anion and its deuterated forms. For the confirmation of the detection of the cyanomethyl anion and its two deuterated forms, namely, CHDCN- and CD2CN-, we present the rotational spectral information of these species in the Appendix. Our chemical model predicts that the deuterated forms of cyanomethyl radicals (specially the anions) are also reasonably abundant around the dense region of the molecular cloud.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2014

Formation of different isotopomers of chloronium in the interstellar medium

Main focus of this paper is to explore the possibility of findings two deuterated isotopomers of H2Cl+ (Chloronium) in and around the Interstellar Medium (ISM). Presence of Chloronium ion has recently been confirmed by Herschel Space Observatory's Heterodyne Instrument for the Far-Infrared (Neufeld et al., 2012). It observed para-chloronium towards six sources in the Galaxy. Existence of its deuterated isotopomers (HDCl+ & D2Cl+) are till date not discussed in the literature. We find that these deuterated gas phase ions could be destroyed by various ion-molecular reactions, dissociative recombination (DR) and by cosmic rays (CR). We compute all the Ion-molecular (polar) reaction rates by using the parameterized trajectory theory and the Ion-molecular (non-polar) reaction rates by using the Langevin theory. For DR and CR induced reactions, we adopt two well behaved rate formulas. We also include these rate coefficients into our large gas-grain chemical network to study the chemical evolution of these species around the outer edge of the cold dense cloud. In order to study spectral properties of chloronium ion and its two deuterated isotopomers, we have carried out quantum chemical simulations. We calculated ground state properties of these species by employing second order Moller-Plesset perturbation theory (MP2) along with quadruple-zeta correlation consistent (aug-cc-pVQZ) basis set. Infrared and electronic absorption spectra of these species are calculated by using the same level of theory. MP2/aug-cc-pVQZ level of theory is used to report the different spectroscopic constants of these gas phase species. These spectroscopic constants are essential to predict rotational transitions of these species. Our predicted column densities of D2Cl^+, HDCl^+ along with the spectral information may enable their future identification around outer edges of cold dark clouds.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2013

Quasi Periodic Oscillations in a Radiative Transonic Flow: Results of a Coupled Monte Carlo-TVD Simulation

Low and intermediate frequency quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) in black hole candidates are believed to be due to oscillations of the Comptonizing regions in an accretion flow. Assuming that the general structure of an accretion disk is a Two Component Advective Flow (TCAF), we numerically simulate the light curves emitted from an accretion disk for different accretion rates and find how the QPO frequencies vary. We use a standard Keplerian disk residing at the equatorial plane as a source of soft photons. These soft photons, after suffering multiple scattering with the hot electrons of the low angular momentum, sub-Keplerian, flow emerge out as hard radiation. The hydrodynamic and thermal properties of the electron cloud is simulated using a Total Variation Diminishing (TVD) code. The TVD code is then coupled with a radiative transfer code which simulates the energy exchange between the electron and radiation using Monte Carlo technique. The resulting localized heating and cooling are included also. We find that the QPO frequency increases and the spectrum becomes softer as we increase the Keplerian disk rate. However, the spectrum becomes harder if we increase the sub-Keplerian accretion rate. We find that an earlier prediction that QPOs occur when the infall time scale roughly matches with the cooling time scale, originally obtained using a power-law cooling, remains valid even for Compton cooling. Our findings agree with the general observations of low frequency QPOs in black hole candidates.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2013

Status of the accretion flow solution in the Golden Jubilee year of the discovery of extra-solar X-ray Sources

Fifty years have just passed since the first discovery of the extra-solar X-ray sources by Giacconi and his team which we know today to be some stellar mass black holes. By 1973, not only a catalog of these enigmatic objects were made, and their spectra were obtained. Today, forty years have passed since the revolutionary idea of the thin, axisymmetric, Keplerian, disk model by Shakura and Sunyaev was published. Yet, the complete predictability of their radiative properties remains as illusive as ever. The only available and self-consistent solution to date is the generalized viscous transonic flow solutions where both heating and cooling effects are included. I demonstrate that the latest `Avatar' of the accretion/outflow picture, the Generalized Two Component Advective Flow (GTCAF), is capable of explaining almost all the black hole observational results, when the results of the time dependent simulation of viscous and radiative processes are also taken into consideration. I also discuss the problems with predictability and argue that understanding companion's behaviour in terms of its habit of mass loss, ellipticity of its orbit, magnetic properties, etc. is extremely important for the prediction of emission properties of the accretion flow.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2013

Role of Viscosity and Cooling in Hydrodynamic Simulation of Two Component Accretion Flow (TCAF) around Black Holes

We carry out numerical simulation of accretion flows around a black hole in presence of both viscous and cooling effects. Instead of using a constant $α$ parameter throughout the simulation grid, we assume that $α$ is maximum on the equatorial plane and gradually goes down in the perpendicular direction We show that when the injected sub-Keplerian flow angular momentum is high enough and/or the viscosity and also cooling is high enough, Two Component {\bf Accretion} Flow (TCAF) would be formed, otherwise the sub-Keplerian flow would remain sub-Keplerian. We see that a Keplerian disk is produced on the equatorial plane. Time variations of the total, Keplerian and Sub-Keplerian matter are studied with respect to various flow parameters.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2013

Effect of the flow composition on outflow rates from accretion discs around black holes

We studied the outflow behaviour from accretion discs around black holes taking into account the vertical equilibrium accretion flow model. The outflow rate is found to depend crucially on flow composition. Our approach is to study the outflow behaviour as function of inflow around black holes with an equation of state which allows flow to be thermally relativistic close to black holes and non relativistic far away from black holes. We studied shock ejection model. A pure electron positron pair flow never undergoes shock transition while presence of some baryons (common in outflows and jets) makes it possible to have standing shock waves in the flow. It can be concluded that the presence of protons is necessary for the flow to show the outflow behaviour. The outflow rate is maximum when the flow contains the proton number density which is 27% of the electron number density. We conclude that a pure electron-positron jet is unlikely to form.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2013

Effects of the composition on transonic properties of accretion flows around black holes

We study the properties of a steady, multi-species, low angular momentum accretion flow around a Schwarzschild black hole. Each species is described by a relativistic equation of state. We find that the transonic properties depend strongly on the composition of the flow. We find that an electron-positron pair plasma is the least relativistic one. This flow produces only one sonic point very close to the event horizon and does not show multiple critical points for any angular momentum or energy. When the baryons are present, the number of critical points depend on the specific energy content. Since the number of critical points decide whether the flow will have non-linearities or shock waves, our results implies that whether or not standing shocks forms will depend on the flow composition. Thus, for instance, a pure electron-positron pair plasma will never undergo a shock transition, while mixing it with some baryons (common in outflows and jets, for example) as in a completely ionized gas, will have shocks. We study in detail how the baryon loading affects the shock properties and discuss implication in astrophysical observations.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2013

Evolution of the temporal and the spectral properties in 2010 and 2011 outbursts of H 1743-322

The Galactic black hole candidate H~1743-322 exhibited two X-ray outbursts in rapid succession: one in August 2010 and the other in April 2011. We analyze archival data of this object from the PCA instrument on board RXTE (2-25 keV energy band) to study the evolution of its temporal and spectral characteristics during both the outbursts, and hence to understand the behavioral change of the accretion flow dynamics associated with the evolution of the various X-ray features. We study the evolution of QPO frequencies during the rising and the declining phases of both the outbursts. We successfully fit the variation of QPO frequency using the Propagating Oscillatory Shock (POS) model in each of the outbursts and obtain the accretion flow parameters such as the instantaneous shock locations, the shock velocity and the shock strength. Based on the degree of importance of the thermal (disk black body) and the non-thermal (power-law) components of the spectral fit and properties of the QPO (if present), the entire profiles of the 2010 and 2011 outbursts are subdivided into four different spectral states: hard, hard-intermediate, soft-intermediate and soft. We attempt to explain the nature of the outburst profile (i.e., hardness-intensity diagram) with two different types of mass accretion flow.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2013

Extracting Flow parameters of H 1743-322 during early phase of its 2010 outburst using Two Component Advective Flow model

We study the spectral properties of Galactic transient black hole candidate H 1743-322 during its early phase of 2010 outburst with Two Component Advective Flow (TCAF) model, after its inclusion in spectral analysis software package XSPEC as a local model. For the analysis, spectral data from RXTE/PCA instrument in 2.5-25 keV energy band are used. From the spectral fit, accretion flow parameters such as Keplerian (disk) rate, sub-Keplerian (halo) rate, location of the shock and strength of the shock are directly extracted. QPO frequencies are predicted from the TCAF model spectral fitted shock parameters, `closely' matches with the observed frequencies.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2013

A New Paradigm in Space Based Experiments Using Rubber Balloons

Indian Centre for Space Physics is engaged in long duration balloon borne experiments with typical payloads less than ~ 3kg. Low cost rubber balloons are used. In a double balloon system, the booster balloon lifts the orbiter balloon to its cruising altitude where data is taken for a long time. Here we present results of muon detections and recent solar activities, including the light curves and flare spectra in the 20-100keV range. We not only show that we have successfully obtained several flares and there spectra at different altitudes, we also found that the high energy X-ray flux of strong flares at altitudes of 10-13 km (the flight altitude of commercial planes) could be more than the contribution due to cosmic rays.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2013

Formation of Cyanoformaldehyde in the interstellar space

Cyanoformaldehyde (HCOCN) molecule has recently been suspected towards the Sagittarius B2(N) by the Green Bank telescope, though a confirmation of this observation has not yet been made. In and around a star forming region, this molecule could be formed by the exothermic reaction between two abundant interstellar species, H2CO and CN. Till date, the reaction rate coefficient for the formation of this molecule is unknown. Educated guesses were used to explain the abundance of this molecule by chemical modeling. In this paper, we carried out quantum chemical calculations to find out empirical rate coefficients for the formation of HCOCN and different chemical properties during the formation of HCOCN molecules. Though HCOCN is stable against unimolecular decomposition, this gas phase molecule could be destroyed by many other means, like: ion-molecular reactions or by the effect of cosmic rays. Ion-molecular reaction rates are computed by using the capture theories. We have also included the obtained rate coefficients into our large gas-grain chemical network to study the chemical evolution of these species in various interstellar conditions. Formation of one of the isotopologue(DCOCN) of HCOCN is also studied. Our study predicts the possibility of finding HCOCN and DCOCN in the ice phase with a reasonably high abundance. In order to detect HCOCN or DCOCN in various interstellar environments, it is necessary to know the spectroscopic properties of these molecules. To this effect, we carried out quantum chemical calculations to find out different spectral parameters of HCOCN for the transition in electronic, infrared and rotational modes. We clearly show how the isotopic substitution (DCOCN) plays a part in the vibrational progressions of HCOCN.

astro-ph.GA↗