ABSTRACT It is expected that the extreme mass accretion rate onto strongly magnetized neutron stars results in the appearance of accretion columns above the stellar surface. For a distant observer, ...rotation of a star results in periodic variations of X-ray flux. Because the mass accretion rate fluctuates around the average value, the pulse profiles are not stable and demonstrate fluctuations as well. In the case of bright X-ray pulsars, however, pulse fluctuations are not solely attributed to variations in the mass accretion rate. They are also influenced by the variable height of the columns, which is dependent on the mass accretion rate. This study delves into the process of pulse profile formation in bright X-ray pulsars, taking into account stochastic fluctuations in the mass accretion rate, the corresponding variations in accretion column geometry, and gravitational bending. Our analysis reveals that potential eclipses of accretion columns by a neutron star during their spin period should manifest specific features in pulse profile variability. Applying a novel pulse profile analysis technique, we successfully detect these features in the bright X-ray transient V 0332+53 at luminosities $\gtrsim 2\times 10^{38}\, {\rm erg\ \rm s^{-1}}$. This detection serves as compelling evidence for the eclipse of an accretion column by a neutron star. Detection of the eclipse places constraints on the relation between neutron star mass, radius, and accretion column height. Specifically, we can establish an upper limit on the accretion column height, which is crucial for refining theoretical models of extreme accretion.
INTEGRAL/IBIS 17-yr hard X-ray all-sky survey Krivonos, Roman A; Sazonov, Sergey Yu; Kuznetsova, Ekaterina A ...
Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society,
03/2022, Volume:
510, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
ABSTRACT
The International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL), launched in 2002, continues its successful work in observing the sky at energies E > 20 keV. The legacy of the mission already ...includes a large number of discovered or previously poorly studied hard X-ray sources. The growing INTEGRAL archive allows one to conduct an all-sky survey including a number of deep extragalactic fields and the deepest ever hard X-ray survey of the Galaxy. Taking advantage of the data gathered over 17 yr with the IBIS coded-mask telescope of INTEGRAL, we conducted survey of hard X-ray sources, providing flux information from 17 to 290 keV. The catalogue includes 929 objects, 890 of which exceed a detection threshold of 4.5σ and the rest are detected at 4.0σ–4.5σ and belong to known catalogued hard X-ray sources. Among the identified sources of known or suspected nature, 376 are associated with the Galaxy and Magellanic clouds, including 145 low-mass and 115 high-mass X-ray binaries, 79 cataclysmic variables, and 37 of other types; and 440 are extragalactic, including 429 active galactic nuclei (AGNs), 2 ultra-luminous sources, 1 supernova (AT2018cow), and 8 galaxy clusters. 113 sources remain unclassified. 46 objects are detected in the hard X-ray band for the first time. The LogN-LogS distribution of 356 non-blazar AGNs is measured down to a flux of 2 × 10−12 erg s−1 cm−2 and can be described by a power law with a slope of 1.44 ± 0.09 and normalization 8 × 10−3 deg−2 at 10−11 erg s−1 cm−2. The LogN-LogS distribution of unclassified sources indicates that the majority of them are of extragalactic origin.
ABSTRACT
We report results of the first detailed spectral and temporal studies of the recently discovered Be/X-ray binary eRASSU J050810.4−660653 in Large Magellanic Cloud based on the data from the ...SRG/ART-XC, NuSTAR and Swift/XRT instruments obtained in 2021 December–2022 May in a wide energy range of 0.5–79 keV. Pulsations with the period of 40.5781 ± 0.0004 s were found in the source light curve with the pulsed fraction monotonically increasing with the energy. An estimate of the orbital period of ∼38 d was obtained based on the long-term monitoring of the system. The source spectrum can be well approximated with a power-law model modified by an exponential cutoff at high energies. The pulse phase-resolved spectroscopy shows a strong variation of spectral parameters depending on the phase of a neutron star rotation. We have not found any features connected with the cyclotron absorption line both in the phase-averaged and phase-resolved spectra of eRASSU J050810.4−660653. However, the neutron star magnetic field was estimated around several 1013 G using different indirect methods. Discovered variations of the hardness ratio over the pulse phase is discussed in terms of physical and geometrical properties of the emitting region.
ABSTRACT
We present a study of the nearby low-metallicity dwarf galaxy IC 1613, focusing on the search for massive stars and related feedback processes, as well as for faint supernova remnants (SNR) ...in late stages of evolution. We obtained the deepest images of IC 1613 in the narrow-band H α, He ii and S ii emission lines and new long-slit spectroscopy observations using several facilities (6-m BTA, 2.5m SAI MSU, and 150RTT telescopes), in combination with the multiwavelength archival data from MUSE/VLT, VLA, XMM–Newton, and Swift/XRT. Our deep narrow-band photometry identifies several faint shells in the galaxy, and we further investigate their physical characteristics with the new long-slit spectroscopy observations and the archival multiwavelength data. Based on energy balance calculations and assumptions about their possible nature, we propose that one of the shells is a possible remnant of a supernova explosion. We study five out of eight Wolf–Rayet (WR) star candidates previously published for this galaxy using the He ii emission line mapping, MUSE/VLT archival spectra, and new long-slit spectra. Our analysis discards the considered WR candidates and finds no new ones. We found P Cyg profiles in H α line in two stars, which we classify as Luminous Blue Variable (LBV) star candidates. Overall, the galaxy IC 1613 may have a lower rate of WR star formation than previously suggested.
We present results of a deep survey of three extragalactic fields, M81 (exposure of 9.7 Ms), Large Magellanic Cloud (6.8 Ms) and 3C 273/Coma (9.3 Ms), in the hard X-ray (17–60 keV) energy band with ...the IBIS telescope onboard the INTEGRAL observatory, based on 12 years of observations (2003–2015). The combined survey reaches a 4σ peak sensitivity of 0.18 mCrab (2.6 × 10−12 erg s−1 cm−2) and sensitivity better than 0.25 and 0.87 mCrab over 10 per cent and 90 per cent of its full area of 4900 deg2, respectively. We have detected in total 147 sources at S/N > 4σ, including 37 sources observed in hard X-rays for the first time. The survey is dominated by extragalactic sources, mostly active galactic nuclei (AGN). The sample of identified sources contains 98 AGN (including 64 Seyfert galaxies, seven low-ionization nuclear emission-line region galaxies, three X-ray bright optically normal galaxies, 16 blazars and eight AGN of unclear optical class), two galaxy clusters (Coma and Abell 3266), 17 objects located in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (13 high- and two low-mass X-ray binaries and two X-ray pulsars), three Galactic cataclysmic variables, one ultraluminous X-ray source (M82 X-1) and one blended source (SWIFT J1105.7+5854). The nature of 25 sources remains unknown, so that the survey's identification is currently complete at 83 per cent. We have constructed AGN number–flux relations (log N–log S) and calculated AGN number densities in the local Universe for the entire survey and for each of the three extragalactic fields.
ABSTRACT
We report results of the spectral and timing analysis of the Be/X-ray pulsar SXP 4.78 using the data obtained during its recent outburst with NuSTAR, Swift, Chandra, and NICER observatories. ...Using an overall evolution of the system luminosity, spectral analysis, and variability power spectrum we obtain constraints on the neutron star magnetic field strength. We found a rapid evolution of the variability power spectrum during the rise of the outburst, and absence of the significant changes during the flux decay. Several low frequency quasi-periodic oscillation features are found to emerge on the different stages of the outburst, but no clear clues on their origin were found in the energy spectrum and overall flux behaviour. We use several indirect methods to estimate the magnetic field strength on the neutron star surface and found that most of them suggest magnetic field B ≲ 2 × 1012 G. The strictest upper limit comes from the absence of the cyclotron absorption features in the energy spectra and suggests relatively weak magnetic field B < 6 × 1011 G.)
Abstract
The International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL) continues to successfully work in orbit after its launch in 2002. The mission provides the deepest ever survey of hard X-ray ...sources throughout the Galaxy at energies above 20 keV. We report on a catalogue of new hard X-ray source candidates based on the latest sky maps comprising 14 yr of data acquired with the IBIS telescope onboard INTEGRAL in the Galactic Plane (|b| < 17.5°). The current catalogue includes in total 72 hard X-ray sources detected at S/N > 4.7σ and not known to previous INTEGRAL surveys. Among them, 31 objects have also been detected in the on-going all-sky survey by the BAT telescope of the Swift observatory. For 26 sources on the list, we suggest possible identifications: 21 active galactic nuclei, two cataclysmic variables, two isolated pulsars or pulsar wind nebulae and one supernova remnant; 46 sources from the catalogue remain unclassified.
We report a discovery of low-frequency quasi-periodic oscillation at 0.3-0.7 Hz in the power spectra of the accreting black hole GRS 1739-278 in the hard-intermediate state during its 2014 outburst ...based on the NuSTAR and Swift/XRT data. The QPO frequency strongly evolved with the source flux during the NuSTAR observation. The source spectrum became softer with rising QPO frequency and simultaneous increasing of the power-law index and decreasing of the cut-off energy. In the power spectrum, a prominent harmonic is clearly seen together with the main QPO peak. The fluxes in the soft and the hard X-ray bands are coherent, however, the coherence drops for the energy bands separated by larger gaps. The phase lags are generally positive (hard) in the 0.1-3 Hz frequency range, and negative below 0.1 Hz. The accretion disc inner radius estimated with the relativistic reflection spectral model appears to be R-in < 7.3R(g). In the framework of the relativistic precession model, in order to satisfy the constraints from the observed QPO frequency and the accretion disc truncation radius, a massive black hole with M-BH a parts per thousand 100 M-aS (TM) is required.
The results of the broadband spectral and timing study of the recently discovered transient X-ray pulsar MAXI J0903–531 in a wide range of luminosities that differ by a factor of ~30 are reported. ...The observed X-ray spectrum in both states can be described as a classical pulsar-like spectrum consisting of a power law with a high-energy cutoff. We argue that the absence of the spectrum transformation to the two-hump structure that is expected at low fluxes indicates that the magnetic field of the neutron star is relatively weak below (2–3) × 10
12
G. This estimate is consistent with other indirect constraints and non-detection of any absorption features that might be interpreted as a cyclotron absorption line. The timing analysis of the
NuSTAR
data revealed only slight variations of a single-peaked pulse profile of the source as a function of the energy band and mass accretion rate. In both intensity states, the pulsed fraction increases from 40% to roughly 80% with the energy. Finally, we were also able to obtain the orbital solution for the binary system using data from the
Fermi/GBM
, NICER, and
NuSTAR
instruments.
INTEGRAL view of AGN Malizia, Angela; Sazonov, Sergey; Bassani, Loredana ...
New astronomy reviews,
11/2020, Volume:
90
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
AGN are among the most energetic phenomena in the Universe and in the last two decades INTEGRAL’s contribution in their study has had a significant impact. Thanks to the INTEGRAL extragalactic sky ...surveys, all classes of soft X-ray detected (in the 2-10 keV band) AGN have been observed at higher energies as well. Up to now, around 450 AGN have been catalogued and a conspicuous part of them are either objects observed at high-energies for the first time or newly discovered AGN. The high-energy domain (20-200 keV) represents an important window for spectral studies of AGN and it is also the most appropriate for AGN population studies, since it is almost unbiased against obscuration and therefore free of the limitations which affect surveys at other frequencies. Over the years, INTEGRAL data have allowed to characterise AGN spectra at high energies, to investigate their absorption properties, to test the AGN unification scheme and to perform population studies. In this review the main results are reported and INTEGRAL’s contribution to AGN science is highlighted for each class of AGN. Finally, new perspectives are provided, connecting INTEGRAL’s science with that at other wavelengths and in particular to the GeV/TeV regime which is still poorly explored.
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