Characterization of GX 339-4 outburst of 2010-11: Analysis by XSPEC using two component advective flow model

Abstract

We study spectral properties of GX 339-4 during its 2010-11 outburst with two component advective flow (TCAF) model after its inclusion in XSPEC as a table model. We compare results fitted by TCAF model with combined disc blackbody and power-law model. For a spectral fit, we use 2.5-25 keV spectral data of the Proportional Counter Array instrument onboard RXTE satellite. From our fit, accretion flow parameters such as Keplerian (disc) rate, sub-Keplerian (halo) rate, location and strength of shock are extracted. We quantify how the disc and the halo rates vary during the entire outburst. We study how the halo to disc accretion rate ratio (ARR), quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs), shock locations and its strength vary when the system passes through hard, hard-intermediate, soft-intermediate and soft states. We find pieces of evidence of monotonically increasing and decreasing nature of QPO frequencies depending on the variation of ARR during rising and declining phases. Interestingly, on days of transition from hard state to hard-intermediate spectral state (during the rising phase) or vice-versa (during decline phase), ARR is observed to be locally maximum. Non-constancy of ARR while obtaining reasonable fits points to the presence of two independent components in the flow.