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Black Hole Binaries in Quiescence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 June 2017

Charles D. Bailyn*
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy, Yale University, PO Box 208101, New Haven CT, 06520-8101USA email: charles.bailyn@yale.edu Yale-NUS College, 16 College Avenue West, Singapore, 138527
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Abstract

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I discuss some of what is known and unknown about the behavior of black hole binary systems in the quiescent accretion state. Quiescence is important for several reasons: 1) the dominance of the companion star in optical and IR wavelengths allows the binary parameters to be robustly determined — as an example, we argue that the longer proposed distance to the X-ray source GRO J1655-40 is correct; 2) quiescence represents the limiting case of an extremely low accretion rate, in which both accretion and jets can be observed; 3) understanding the evolution and duration of the quiescent state is a key factor in determining the overall demographics of X-ray binaries, which has taken on a new importance in the era of gravitational wave astronomy.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2017 

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