Discovery of Jet-Induced Soft Lags of XTE J1550-564 during Its 1998 Outburst ^†

Abstract

X-ray time lags are complicated in nature. The exact reasons for complex lag spectra are as yet unknown. However, the hard lags, in general, are believed to be originated due to inverse Comptonization process. However, the origin of soft lags remained mischievous. Recent studies on “Disk−Jet Connections” revealed that the jets are also contributing in the X-ray spectral and timing properties in a magnitude which was more than what was predicted earlier. In this article, we first show an exact anticorrelation between X-ray time lag and radio flux for XTE J1550-546 during its 1998 outburst. We propose that the soft lags might be generated due to the change in the accretion disk structure along the line of sight during higher jet activity.

Keywords

• accretion disks
• radio jets and outflows
• individual—XTE J1550-564
• X-ray time lags