A Study on the Hysteresis Effect and Spectral Evolution in the Mini-Outbursts of Black Hole X-Ray Binary XTE J1550-564

Abstract

One normal outburst and three mini-outbursts have been detected by Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer satellite after 2000 in the well-known black hole X-ray binary XTE J1550-564. In this work, we explore the hysteresis effect of the four outbursts, which is a phenomenon that a similar spectral state transition occurs at different luminosity in an outburst of black hole X-ray binary. A q-like track was found in the hardness-intensity diagram of the normal outburst in 2000 but not in the three mini-outbursts that only occur in the Low/Hard state. The results demonstrate that the hysteresis effect is not apparent in the three mini-outbursts and the X-ray spectra are harder than that of the normal outburst at the same photon count rate. Furthermore, the results of the correlation analysis show that the Γ − F2−10keV correlation of mini-outburst maintain negative in the Low/Hard state with the harder spectra than that of the normal outburst at the same X-ray flux. The X-ray spectral evolution can be well-explained by the state-transition model from the Shakura–Sunyaev disk to the advection-dominated accretion flow, which implies that the three mini-outbursts of XTE J1550-564 might originate from a smaller discrete accretion event.