The orbital resonance model for twin peak kHz quasi periodic oscillations in microquasars

¹ UKAFF supercomputer facility, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, UK
² Institute of Physics, Faculty of Philosophy and Science, Silesian University in Opava, Bezručovo nám. 13, 746 01 Opava, Czech Republic e-mail: terek@volny.cz, stu10uf@fpf.slu.cz
³ Astrophysics, Göteborg University, 412-96 Göteborg, Sweden e-mail: marek@fy.chalmers.se
⁴ Institute of Astronomy, Zielona Góra University ul. Lubuska 2, 65-265 Zielona Góra, Poland
⁵ Copernicus Astronomical Centre, Warszawa, Poland e-mail: wlodek@camk.edu.pl

Received: 21 January 2004
Accepted: 13 January 2005

Abstract

In all microquasars with double peak high frequency QPOs, the ratio of the frequencies is 3:2, which supports the suggestion that a non-linear resonance between two modes of oscillation in the accretion disk plays a role in exciting the observed modulations of the X-ray flux. We discuss evidence in favor of this interpretation and relate the black hole spin to the frequencies expected for various types of resonances that may occur in nearly Keplerian disks in strong gravity. For those microquasars where the mass of the central X-ray source is known, the black hole spin can be deduced from a comparison of the observed and expected frequencies.