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Transient short time periodicities in the optical enission from Cyg X-1

Abstract

TEMPORAL structure down to the millisecond time scale has been observed in the X-ray emission of Cyg X-1 (ref. 1). This has been interpreted as evidence of instabilities in the accretion disk surrounding a black hole2–4, lasting for approximately the orbital period of the infalling matter. We report here observations of modulated optical emission from this source with a period of 83 ms. The modulated emission was detected in two sets of obserations as transient events lasting 10 min. This is the first evdence of strong emission at optical wavelengths from the C-ray source in the Cyg X-1-HDE226868 system.

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References

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AURIEMMA, G., CARDINI, D., COSTA, E. et al. Transient short time periodicities in the optical enission from Cyg X-1. Nature 259, 27–29 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1038/259027a0

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