Kavli Affiliate: Dheeraj R. Pasham
| First 5 Authors: Dheeraj R. Pasham, Eric R. Coughlin, Michal Zajacek, Itai Linial, Petra Sukova
| Summary:
Quasi-periodic Eruptions (QPEs) represent a novel class of extragalactic
X-ray transients that are known to repeat at roughly regular intervals of a few
hours to days. Their underlying physical mechanism is a topic of heated debate,
with most models proposing that they originate either from instabilities within
the inner accretion flow or from orbiting objects. At present, our knowledge of
how QPEs evolve over an extended timescale of multiple years is limited, except
for the unique QPE source GSN 069. In this study, we present results from
strategically designed Swift observing programs spanning the past three years,
aimed at tracking eruptions from eRO-QPE1. Our main results are: 1) the
recurrence time of eruptions can vary between 0.6 and 1.2 days, 2) there is no
detectable secular trend in evolution of the recurrence times, 3) consistent
with prior studies, their eruption profiles can have complex shapes, and 4) the
peak flux of the eruptions has been declining over the past 3 years with the
eruptions barely detected in the most recent Swift dataset taken in June of
2023. This trend of weakening eruptions has been reported recently in GSN 069.
However, because the background luminosity of eRO-QPE1 is below our detection
limit, we cannot verify if the weakening is correlated with the background
luminosity (as is claimed to be the case for GSN 069). We discuss these
findings within the context of various proposed QPE models.
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