The radio/X-ray correlation in Cyg X-3 and the nature of its hard spectral state

Abstract

We study the radio/X-ray correlation in Cyg X-3. It has been known that the soft and hard X-ray fluxes in the hard spectral state are correlated positively and negatively, respectively, with the radio flux. We show that this implies that the observed ~1-100 keV flux (which is a fair approximation to the bolometric flux) is completely uncorrelated with the radio flux. We can recover a positive correlation (seen in other sources and expected theoretically) if the soft X-rays are strongly absorbed by a local medium. Then, however, the intrinsic X-ray spectrum of Cyg X-3 in its hard state becomes relatively soft, similar to that of an intermediate spectral state of black hole binaries, but not to their true hard state.We also find the radio spectra in the hard state of Cyg X-3 are hard on average, and the flux distributions of the radio emission and soft X-rays can be described by sums of two lognormal functions. We compare Cyg X-3 with other X-ray binaries using colour-colour, colour-Eddington ratio and Eddington ratio-radio flux diagrams. We find Cyg X-3 to be spectrally most similar to GRS 1915+105, except that Cyg X-3 is substantially more radio loud, which appears to be due to its jet emission enhanced by interaction with the powerful stellar wind from the Wolf-Rayet donor.