The black hole candidate MAXI J1659-152: spectral and timing analysis
  during its 2010 outburst
  We present a comprehensive spectral-timing study of the black hole candidate
MAXI J1659-152 during its 2010 outburst. We analysed 65 RXTE observations taken
along this period and computed the fundamental diagrams commonly used to study
black hole transients. We fitted power density and energy spectra and studied
the evolution of the spectral and timing parameters along the outburst. We
discuss the evolution of the variability observed at different energy bands on
the basis of the relative contribution of the disc and hard components to the
energy spectrum of the source. We conclude that hard emission accounts for the
observed fast variability, it being strongly quenched when type-B oscillations
are observed. We find that both disc and hard emission are responsible for
local count-rate peaks until the system reaches the soft state. From that
point, the peaks are only observed in the hard component, whereas the thermal
component drops monotonically probably following the accretion rate decrease.
We have also computed time-lags between soft and hard X-ray variability
confirming that lags are larger during the hard-to-soft transition than during
the hard state.
