{
  "abstract": "After more than 25 years of near-Eddington activity and over six years in a Compton-thick obscured phase, the black-hole X-ray binary GRS 1915+105 has begun to fade in the radio to a level lower than ever previously recorded, possibly marking the onset of its final descent towards quiescence. With the accretion flow hidden in the X-rays, the radio emission is currently the best tracer of the accretion activity. We aim to establish whether the fading marks the end of the outburst that began in 1992 or a temporary switch-off. We present the long-term MeerKAT monitoring of the source from the ThunderKAT and X-KAT programmes up to 2026 July, deep dual-band (L- and S-band) MeerKAT Director's Discretionary Time observations, and three Einstein Probe/FXT X-ray pointings bracketing them. Following a last Jy-level flare in early 2025, the 1.28 GHz flux density declined monotonically to $\\sim$0.2-0.4 mJy by 2026 March, and after 2026 May 9 it was no longer formally detected in our 10-min monitoring observations. Deep MeerKAT observations in 2026 July detect the source at $\\sim$150 $μ$Jy in L band and $\\sim$90 $μ$Jy in S band, the lowest radio flux densities ever recorded from the system, corresponding to $L_{\\rm R}\\simeq2\\times10^{28}$ erg s$^{-1}$ at 1.28 GHz, with a spectral index $α=-0.67\\pm0.41$ across 1.28-2.62 GHz. The radio decline is the first direct evidence that the central engine itself is fading rather than merely receding further behind the absorber. The steep spectrum is consistent with either a combination of optically thick and thin emission, or an unusual, intrinsically steep core-jet spectrum. Should this mark the onset of quiescence, disc-instability models predict it to last of order $10^4$ yr. The switch-off of the central engine may shed light on the nature of the donor star and on the origin of the very-high-energy gamma-ray emission in this system.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": "2611.07039",
  "author_total": 24,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "S. E. Motta"
    },
    {
      "name": "R. P. Fender"
    },
    {
      "name": "A. Marino"
    },
    {
      "name": "P. Atri"
    },
    {
      "name": "F. Carotenuto"
    },
    {
      "name": "D. Williams-Baldwin"
    },
    {
      "name": "M. C. Baglio"
    },
    {
      "name": "Jun-Ping Chen"
    },
    {
      "name": "Wei Chen"
    },
    {
      "name": "F. Coti Zelati"
    },
    {
      "name": "F. J. Cowie"
    },
    {
      "name": "L. De Regt"
    },
    {
      "name": "N. Grollimund"
    },
    {
      "name": "A. K. Hughes"
    },
    {
      "name": "Yuan Liu"
    },
    {
      "name": "I. Mariani"
    },
    {
      "name": "N. Rea"
    },
    {
      "name": "L. Rhodes"
    },
    {
      "name": "P. Saikia"
    },
    {
      "name": "C. Salvaggio"
    },
    {
      "name": "K. Solomons"
    },
    {
      "name": "J. van den Eijnden"
    },
    {
      "name": "Kong-Jun Zhang"
    },
    {
      "name": "Dan Zhu"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/6zbfb3p2nejkw.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.48550/arxiv.2611.07039",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "6zbfb3p2nejkw",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.07039",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "LicenseRef-arXiv-nonexclusive-1.0",
  "licence_label": "arXiv licence",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/",
  "metadata_licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "arxiv",
      "astro-ph.HE"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": null,
  "pdf_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2611.07039",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-11-04",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/6zbfb3p2nejkw.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-06T18:21:30Z",
      "native_id": "2611.07039",
      "source": "arxiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.07039"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "astronomy",
      "origin": "arxiv:astro-ph.HE",
      "subfield": "high-energy-astrophysics"
    }
  ],
  "title": "The retirement party of GRS 1915+105: the radio fading to quiescence of the archetypal microquasar",
  "title_text": "The retirement party of GRS 1915+105: the radio fading to quiescence of the archetypal microquasar",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-09T00:20:40Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/6zbfb3p2nejkw",
  "venue": "arXiv",
  "versions": []
}