The Chaotic Behavior of the Black Hole System GRS 1915+105

A modified non-linear time series analysis technique, which computes thecorrelation dimension $D_2$, is used to analyze the X-ray light curves of theblack hole system GRS 1915+105 in all twelve temporal classes. For four ofthese temporal classes $D_2 $ saturates to $\approx 4-5$ which indicates thatthe underlying dynamical mechanism is a low dimensional chaotic system. Of theother eight classes, three show stochastic behavior while five show deviationfrom randomness. The light curves for four classes which depict chaoticbehavior have the smallest ratio of the expected Poisson noise to thevariability ($ < 0.05$) while those for the three classes which depictstochastic behavior is the highest ($ > 0.2$). This suggests that the temporalbehavior of the black hole system is governed by a low dimensional chaoticsystem, whose nature is detectable only when the Poisson fluctuations are muchsmaller than the variability.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journa