States of J0456−20 overlaid on the BH X-ray binary state diagram. The numbers are as labelled in Fig. 11. The source cycles between a low soft state dominated by thermal emission (&#Xtextcircled;1–&#Xtextcircled;2), ignition of Comptonised emission (&#Xtextcircled;3–&#Xtextcircled;4), and returns to a thermally dominated state &#Xtextcircled;5. The phase &#Xtextcircled;6 in Fig. 11 corresponds to the quiescent state of BHXRBs and is not shown in this plot.