Summary
ABSTRACT X-ray irradiation heating of accretion discs in black hole X-ray binaries (BHXBs) plays a key role in regulating their outburst cycles. However, despite decades of theoretical and observational efforts, the physical mechanism(s) responsible for irradiating these discs remains largely unknown. We have built an observation-based methodology to estimate the strength of irradiation of BHXB discs by combining multiwavelength X-ray and optical/infrared (OIR) data throughout transient outbursts. We apply this to ∼15 yr of activity in the Galactic BHXB GX339–4. Our findings suggest that the irradiation heating required by the optical data is large in this system. Direct illumination of the outer disc does not produce sufficient irradiation, but this should also produce a thermal-radiative
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