Detection of Quasi-Periodic Oscillations in the June 2015 Outburst of V404 Cygni

In June 2015, the black hole X-ray binary (BHXRB) V404 Cygni went into outburst for the first time in 26 years. The source is not only the closest known BHXRB, it is also known to undergo extreme variations in brightness, allowing us to study the source’s behaviour during flaring with the unprecedented detail afforded by modern space and ground-based instrumentation.Here we present a timing study and a comprehensive search for quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) of V404 Cygni during its most recent outburst, utilizing data from six instruments on board five different X-ray missions: Swift/XRT, Fermi/GBM, Chandra/ACIS, INTEGRAL’s IBIS/ISGRI and JEM-X, and NuSTAR.We find four previously unobserved, significant QPOs throughout the outburst. One QPO, at 18 mHz, is detected in simultaneous observations with both Fermi/GBM and Swift/XRT, and is a likely example of a rare, recently discovered class of mHz-QPOs in BHXRBs linked to high-inclination sources. We also find a broad structure in averaged periodograms of several Chandra/ACIS and INTEGRAL/JEM-X observations that contains significant variability, but is too broad to be called a QPO, reminiscent of a feature more commonly observed in Cygnus X-1. We discuss our results in the context of current models for QPO formation.