scholarly journals NuSTAR view of Be/X-ray binary pulsar 2S 1417−624 during 2018 giant outburst

2019 ◽  
Vol 490 (2) ◽  
pp. 2458-2466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shivangi Gupta ◽  
Sachindra Naik ◽  
Gaurava K Jaisawal

ABSTRACT We report the results obtained from a detailed timing and spectral studies of Be/X-ray binary pulsar 2S 1417−624 using data from Swift and NuSTAR observatories. The observations were carried out at the peak of a giant outburst of the pulsar in 2018. X-ray pulsations at ∼17.475 s were detected in the source light curves up to 79 keV. The evolution of the pulse profiles with energy was found to be complex. A four-peaked profile at lower energies gradually evolved into a double-peak structure at higher energies. The pulsed fraction of the pulsar, calculated from the NuSTAR observation was found to follow an anticorrelation trend with luminosity as observed during previous giant X-ray outburst studies in 2009. The broad-band spectrum of the pulsar is well described by a composite model consisting of a cut-off power-law model modified with the interstellar absorption, a thermal blackbody component with a temperature of ≈1 keV, and a Gaussian function for the 6.4 keV iron emission line. Though the pulsar was observed at the peak of the giant outburst, there was no signature of presence of any cyclotron line feature in the spectrum. The radius of the blackbody emitting region was estimated to be ≈2 km, suggesting that the most probable site of its origin is the stellar surface of the neutron star. Physical models were also explored to understand the emission geometry of the pulsar and are discussed in the paper.

2020 ◽  
Vol 497 (4) ◽  
pp. 4213-4221
Author(s):  
Ritesh Ghosh ◽  
Sibasish Laha

ABSTRACT We have extensively studied the broad--band X-ray spectra of the source ESO 141–G055 using all available XMM–Newton and NuSTAR observations. We detect a prominent soft excess below $2\rm \, \, {\rm keV}$, a narrow Fe line, and a Compton hump ($\gt 10\rm \, \, {\rm keV}$). The origin of the soft excess is still debated. We used two models to describe the soft excess: the blurred reflection from the ionized accretion disc and the intrinsic thermal Comptonization model. We find that both of these models explain the soft excess equally well. We confirm that we do not detect any broad Fe line in the X-ray spectra of this source, although both the physical models prefer a maximally spinning black hole scenario (a > 0.96). This may mean that either the broad Fe line is absent or blurred beyond detection. The Eddington rate of the source is estimated to be $\lambda _{\rm \, Edd}\sim 0.31$. In the reflection model, the Compton hump has a contribution from both ionized and neutral reflection components. The neutral reflector which simultaneously describes the narrow Fe K α and the Compton hump has a column density of $N_{\rm H} \ge 7\times 10^{24} \, \rm cm^{-2}$. In addition, we detect a partially covering ionized absorption with ionization parameter $\log \xi /\rm \, erg\, cm\, s^{-1}$  = $0.1^{+0.1}_{-0.1}$ and column density $N_{\rm H} =20.6^{+1.0}_{-1.0}\times 10^{22} \, \rm cm^{-2}$ with a covering factor of $0.21^{+0.01}_{-0.01}$.


1988 ◽  
Vol 42 (5) ◽  
pp. 819-826 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heino Susi ◽  
D. Michael Byler

Fourier deconvolution has been employed to enhance the resolution of the amide I Raman band of nine proteins found in milk and/or other foods. The broad band was resolved into several components. The overall shape of the amide I Raman band of proteins was found to be nearly Gaussian or to be composed of Gaussian components. A Gaussian function was therefore used for deconvolution. The results obtained were more detailed than those obtained with the Lorentzian approximation usually employed. The resolved band components were assigned to specific protein conformations. The frequencies and assignments are in good agreement with previous Raman work based on entirely different procedures. The band areas of the resolved components appear to reflect the fraction of any given conformation in a protein. Semiquantitative estimations of protein conformation are in reasonable agreement with data obtained by x-ray diffraction and by infrared methods.


2018 ◽  
Vol 616 ◽  
pp. A129 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. J. E. Kajava ◽  
S. E. Motta ◽  
C. Sánchez-Fernández ◽  
E. Kuulkers

In December 2015 the black hole binary V404 Cyg underwent a secondary outburst after the main June 2015 event. We monitored this re-brightening with the INTEGRAL and Swift satellites, and in this paper we report the results of the time-resolved spectral analysis of these data. The December outburst shared several characteristics with the June event. The well-sampled INTEGRAL light curve shows up to ten Crab flares, which are separated by relatively weak non-flaring emission phases when compared to the June outburst. The spectra are nicely described by absorbed Comptonization models, with hard photon indices, Γ ≲ 2, and significant detections of a high-energy cut-off only during the bright flares. This is in contrast to the June outburst, where the Comptonization models gave electron temperatures mostly in the 30–50 keV range, while some spectra were soft (Γ ~ 2.5) without signs of any spectral cut-off. Similarly to the June outburst, we see clear signs of a variable local absorber in the soft energy band covered by Swift/XRT and INTEGRAL/JEM-X, which causes rapid spectral variations observed during the flares. During one flare, both Swift and INTEGRAL captured V404 Cyg in a state where the absorber was nearly Compton thick, N H ≈ 1024 cm−2, and the broad-band spectrum was similar to obscured AGN spectra, as seen during the X-ray plateaus in the June outburst. We conclude that the spectral behaviour of V404 Cyg during the December outburst was analogous with the first few days of the June outburst, both having hard X-ray flares that were intermittently influenced by obscuration due to nearly Compton-thick outflows launched from the accretion disc.


2020 ◽  
Vol 496 (1) ◽  
pp. 197-205
Author(s):  
Prince Sharma ◽  
Rahul Sharma ◽  
Chetana Jain ◽  
Anjan Dutta

ABSTRACT This work presents the broad-band time-averaged spectral analysis of neutron star (NS) low-mass X-ray binary, XTE J1710−281 by using the Suzaku archival data. The source was in a hard or an intermediate spectral state during this observation. This is the first time that a detailed spectral analysis of the persistent emission spectra of XTE J1710−281 has been done up to 30 keV with improved constraints on its spectral parameters. By simultaneously fitting the X-ray Imaging Spectrometer (0.6–9.0 keV) and the HXD-PIN (15.0–30.0 keV) data, we have modelled the persistent spectrum of the source with models comprising a soft component from accretion disc and/or NS surface/boundary layer and a hard Comptonizing component. The 0.6–30 keV continuum with neutral absorber can be described by a multicolour disc blackbody with an inner disc temperature of kTdisc = 0.28 keV, which is significantly Comptonized by the hot electron cloud with electron temperature of kTe ≈ 5 keV and described by photon index Γ = 1.86. A more complex three-component model comprising a multicolour disc blackbody ≈0.30 keV, single-temperature blackbody ≈0.65 keV, and Comptonization from the disc, partially absorbed (about 38 per cent) by an ionized absorber (log(ξ) ≈ 4) describes the broad-band spectrum equally well.


2020 ◽  
Vol 500 (3) ◽  
pp. 3454-3461
Author(s):  
Gunjan Tomar ◽  
Pragati Pradhan ◽  
Biswajit Paul

ABSTRACT We report results from the analysis of data from two observations of the accreting binary X-ray pulsar Cen X-3 carried out with the broad-band X-ray observatories Suzaku and NuSTAR. The pulse profile is dominated by a broad single peak and show some energy dependence with two additional weak pulse peaks at energies below 15 and 25 keV, respectively. The broad-band X-ray spectrum for 0.8–60.0 keV for Suzaku  and 3.0–60.0 keV for NuSTAR is fitted well with high-energy cut-off power-law model along with soft-excess, multiple iron emission lines and a cyclotron absorption. The cyclotron line energy is found to be $30.29^{+0.68}_{-0.61}$ and $29.22^{+0.28}_{-0.27}$ keV, respectively, in the Suzaku  and NuSTAR  spectra. We make a comparison of these two measurements with four previous measurements of Cyclotron Resonant Scattering Feature (CRSF) in Cen X-3  obtained with Ginga, BeppoSAX,  and RXTE. We find no evidence for a dependence of the CRSF on luminosity. Except for one CRSF measurement with BeppoSAX , the remaining measurements are consistent with a CRSF energy in the range of 29.5–30.0 keV over a luminosity range of 1.1–5.4 × 1037 erg s−1 different from several other sources that show considerable CRSF variation in the same luminosity range.


2020 ◽  
Vol 633 ◽  
pp. A31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Coti Zelati ◽  
Alice Borghese ◽  
Nanda Rea ◽  
Daniele Viganò ◽  
Teruaki Enoto ◽  
...  

We present the evolution of the X-ray emission properties of the magnetar 1E 1547.0–5408 since February 2004 over a time period covering three outbursts. We analyzed new and archival observations taken with the Swift, NuSTAR, Chandra, and XMM–Newton X-ray satellites. The source has been observed at a relatively steady soft X-ray flux of ≈10−11 erg cm−2 s−1 (0.3–10 keV) over the last 9 years, which is about an order of magnitude fainter than the flux at the peak of the last outburst in 2009, but a factor of ∼30 larger than the level in 2006. The broad-band spectrum extracted from two recent NuSTAR observations in April 2016 and February 2019 showed a faint hard X-ray emission up to ∼70 keV. Its spectrum is adequately described by a flat power law component, and its flux is ∼7 × 10−12 erg cm−2 s−1 (10–70 keV), that is a factor of ∼20 smaller than at the peak of the 2009 outburst. The hard X-ray spectral shape has flattened significantly in time, which is at variance with the overall cooling trend of the soft X-ray component. The pulse profile extracted from these NuSTAR pointings displays variability in shape and amplitude with energy (up to ≈25 keV). Our analysis shows that the flux of 1E 1547.0–5408 is not yet decaying to the 2006 level and that the source has been lingering in a stable, high-intensity state for several years. This might suggest that magnetars can hop among distinct persistent states that are probably connected to outburst episodes and that their persistent thermal emission can be almost entirely powered by the dissipation of currents in the corona.


1985 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 186-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. G. Greenhill ◽  
K. B. Fenton ◽  
R. K. Sood ◽  
I. R. Tuohy

AbstractA broad-band (2-190 keV) Australian X-ray satellite could provide a spectral sensitivity substantially better than HEAO-1 or any presently approved spacecraft. It would be virtually unique by providing simultaneously data over a wide energy range with high sensitivity and energy resolution in the little measured region above 30 keV. These measurements are vital to our understanding of such diverse topics as the cyclotron line production mechanism in binary sources, the structure of the magnetosphere of neutron stars, the origin of the diffuse cosmic X-ray background and the nature of the giant power sources in active galaxies and stellar black holes. Details of the proposed spacecraft and scientific objectives are given.


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