The black hole X-ray transient XTE J1550-564 has
undergone a strong
outburst in 1998 and two relativistic X-ray jets have
been detected
years later with the Chandra X-ray observatory; the
eastern
jet was found previously to have decelerated after its
first
detection. Here we report a full analysis of the evolution
of the
western jet; significant deceleration is also detected in
the
western side. Our analysis indicates that there is a
cavity outside
the central source and the jets first traveled with
constant
velocity and then were slowed down by the interactions
between the
jets and the interstellar medium (ISM). The best fitted
radius of
the cavity is about 0.31 pc on the eastern side and
about 0.44 pc on
the western side, and the densities also show
asymmetry, of
about 0.034/cm^3 on the east to about 0.12/cm^3 on
the
west. The best fitted magnetic fields on both sides are
about 0.5
mG. Similar analysis is also applied to another
microquasar system,
H 1743-322, and a large scale low density region is also
found.
Based on these results and the comparison with other
microquasar
systems, we suggest a generic scenario for microquasar
jets,
classifying the observed jets into three main categories,
with
different jet morphologies (and sizes) corresponding to
different
scales of vacuous environments surrounding them. We
also suggest
that the accretion disk winds and/or continuous jets
may be responsible for
creating these
cavities. Therefore X-ray jets from microquasars provide
us with a
promising method of probing the environment of
accreting black
holes. |