http://arxiv.org/abs/1411.4209
X-ray flares have been discovered in black hole systems, such as gamma-ray bursts, the tidal disruption event Swift J1644+57, the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A$^*$ at the center of our Galaxy, and some active galactic nuclei. Their occurrences are always companied by relativistic jets. However, it is still unknown whether there is a physical analogy among such X-ray flares produced in black hole systems spanning nine orders of magnitude in mass. Here we report the observed data of X-ray flares, and show that they have three statistical properties similar to solar flares, including power-law distributions of energies, durations, and waiting times, which both can be explained by a fractal-diffusive self-organized criticality model. These statistical similarities, together with the fact that solar flares are triggered by a magnetic reconnection process, suggest that all of the X-ray flares are consistent with magnetic reconnection events, implying that their concomitant relativistic jets may be magnetically dominated.
F. Wang, Z. Dai, S. Yi, et. al.
Tue, 18 Nov 14
18/79
Comments: 23 pages, 4 tables, 6 figures. Accepted for publication by ApJS