Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T17:22:06.740Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Synchrotron Bubbles and Radio Transients

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2016

Lewis Ball
Affiliation:
Research Centre for Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Sydney, NSW 2006
Michael Vlassis
Affiliation:
Department of Theoretical Physics, University of Sydney, NSW 2006

Abstract

We discuss a generalisation of the synchrotron bubble model which has been applied to short-lived radio transients which can peak and decay over just a few days. The assumptions of the simple model imply that when the flux is increasing with time, it must also be an increasing function of frequency. Observations of two recent radio transients, Nova Muscae 1991 and the Galactic Centre Transient, include the first data showing such a rising phase, and in both cases the radio flux was a decreasing function of frequency during the observed rising phases. Thus the simple synchrotron bubble model is inadequate, at least for these events. A fundamental feature of the simple model is the assumption that the process accelerating the radiating electrons ceases before the radio emission can escape. We relax this assumption by including an injection of electrons, with a constant energy spectrum, into the synchrotron bubble.

Type
Galactic and Stellar
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of Australia 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ball, L.T., Kesteven, M.J., Campbell-Wilson, D., Turtle, A.J. and Hjellming, R.M., 1992, Mon. Not. R. astr. Soc., Radio observations of the soft X-ray transient GRS 1124-68 (Nova Muscae 1991), in preparation.Google Scholar
Brandt, S., Castro-Tirado, A.J., Lund, N., Dremin, V., Lapshov, I. and Sunyaev, R., 1992, Astron. Astrophys., 254, L39.Google Scholar
Della-Valle, M., Jarvis, B.J. and West, R.M., 1991a, Astron. Astrophys., 247, L33.Google Scholar
Della-Valle, M., Jarvis, B.J. and West, R.M., 1991b, Nature, 353, 50.Google Scholar
Han, X. and Hjellming, R.M., 1990, in Accretion powered compact binaries, Mauche, C. (ed), CUP, p. 25.Google Scholar
Han, X., and Hjellming, R.M., 1992, Astrophys. J., 400, 304.Google Scholar
Hjellming, R.M. and Johnston, K.J., 1988, Astrophys. J., 328, 600.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hjellming, R.M., Calovini, T.A., Han, X. and Córdova, F.A., 1988, Astrophys. J., 335, L75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kesteven, M.J. and Turtle, A.J., 1991, in Proc. Workshop on Nova Muscae 1991, Danish Space Research Institute, Lyngby N. Lund, (ed), p. 115.Google Scholar
Kitamoto, S., Tsunemi, H., Miyamoto, S. and Hayashida, K., 1992, Astrophys. J., 394, 609.Google Scholar
Kitamoto, S., 1992, in Proc. Fourth International Toki Conference on Fusion and Astrophysical Plasmas, Toki, Japan, Properties of X-ray emission from X-ray Novae, ESA, in press.Google Scholar
Shklovskii, I.S., 1960, Soviet Astronomy AJ, 4, 243.Google Scholar
van, der Laan H., 1966, Nature 211, 1131.Google Scholar
Zhao, J., Roberts, D.A., Goss, W.M., Frail, D.A., Lo, K.Y., Subrahmanyan, R., Kesteven, M.J., Ekers, R.D., Allen, D.A., Burton, M.G. and Spyromilio, J., 1992, Science, 255, 1538.Google Scholar