Establish the origin of SS 433 jet precession

Determine whether the variable jet orientations of SS 433 are produced by a precessing accretion disk under the slaved-disk mechanism or by Lense–Thirring dragging of the jet in the proposed turbulent accretion-flow scenario.

Background

SS 433 has traditionally been interpreted using a precessing-jet model with a 162.375-day period, attributed to an accretion disk whose orientation is controlled by the companion star. The paper argues that some observed jet morphology may instead favor Lense–Thirring dragging, but notes that the slaved-disk explanation itself has not been securely established. Consequently, the physical mechanism responsible for the observed jet orientation remains unresolved.

References

However, the slaved disk model has never been firmly demonstrated.

— Re-interpreting the GRS 1915+105 observations within the variable TADAF scenario  (2609.37088 - Xu, 29 Sep 2026) in Section 3.3, discussion of SS 433

The result is thus inclusive. We believe such results lie in the following uncertainties: the phase shift of the precessing model over a long time was found to be about 0.1 \citep{Fabrika2004}. The radio jet and optical jet have a time shift of about 7--17~days (near 0.1 phase) \citep{Niell1981,Stirling2002}, depending on the jet length to measure its PA. The PA estimated from the images in the literature is subject to large errors. The combination of those errors is not good enough to tell the expected phase differences of 0.25. We believe that careful study of the original data with simultaneous optical line and VLBI measurements, or future dedicated optical and VLBI observations, can tell the difference.

— Re-interpreting the GRS 1915+105 observations within the variable TADAF scenario  (2609.37088 - Xu, 29 Sep 2026) in Section 3.3, final paragraph of the SS 433 discussion