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Register a new userThe nature of the X-ray transient MAXI J0556-332
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Phase-resolved spectroscopy of the newly discovered X-ray transient MAXI J0556-332 has revealed the presence of narrow emission lines in the Bowen region that most likely arise on the surface of the mass donor star in this low mass X-ray binary. A period search of the radial velocities of these lines provides two candidate orbital periods (16.43+/-0.12 and 9.754+/-0.048 hrs), which differ from any potential X-ray periods reported. Assuming that MAXI J0556-332 is a relatively high inclination system that harbors a precessing accretion disk in order to explain its X-ray properties, it is only possible to obtain a consistent set of system parameters for the longer period. These assumptions imply a mass ratio of q~0.45, a radial velocity semi-amplitude of the secondary of K_2~190 km/s and a compact object mass of the order of the canonical neutron star mass, making a black hole nature for MAXI J0556-332 unlikely. We also report the presence of strong N III emission lines in the spectrum, thereby inferring a high N/O abundance. Finally we note that the strength of all emission lines shows a continuing decay over the ~1 month of our observations.
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We report on the spectral evolution of a new X-ray transient, MAXI J0556-332, observed by MAXI, Swift, and RXTE. The source was discovered on 2011 January 11 (MJD=55572) by MAXI Gas Slit Camera all-sky survey at (l,b)=(238.9deg, -25.2deg), relatively away from the Galactic plane. Swift/XRT follow-up observations identified it with a previously uncatalogued bright X-ray source and led to optical identification. For more than one year since its appearance, MAXI J0556-332 has been X-ray active, with a 2-10 keV intensity above 30 mCrab. The MAXI/GSC data revealed rapid X-ray brightening in the first five days, and a hard-to-soft transition in the meantime. For the following ~ 70 days, the 0.5-30 keV spectra, obtained by the Swift/XRT and the RXTE/PCA on an almost daily basis, show a gradual hardening, with large flux variability. These spectra are approximated by a cutoff power-law with a photon index of 0.4-1 and a high-energy exponential cutoff at 1.5-5 keV, throughout the initial 10 months where the spectral evolution is mainly represented by a change of the cutoff energy. To be more physical, the spectra are consistently explained by thermal emission from an accretion disk plus a Comptonized emission from a boundary layer around a neutron star. This supports the source identification as a neutron-star X-ray binary. The obtained spectral parameters agree with those of neutron-star X-ray binaries in the soft state, whose luminosity is higher than 1.8x10^37 erg s^-1. This suggests a source distance of >17 kpc.
The transient neutron star (NS) low-mass X-ray binary MAXI J0556$-$332 provides a rare opportunity to study NS crust heating and subsequent cooling for multiple outbursts of the same source. We examine {it MAXI}, {it Swift}, {it Chandra}, and {it XMM-Newton} data of MAXI J0556$-$332 obtained during and after three accretion outbursts of different durations and brightness. We report on new data obtained after outburst III. The source has been tracked up to $sim$1800 d after the end of outburst I. Outburst I heated the crust strongly, but no significant reheating was observed during outburst II. Cooling from $sim$333 eV to $sim$146 eV was observed during the first $sim$1200 d. Outburst III reheated the crust up to $sim$167 eV, after which the crust cooled again to $sim$131 eV in $sim$350 d. We model the thermal evolution of the crust and find that this source required a different strength and depth of shallow heating during each of the three outbursts. The shallow heating released during outburst I was $sim$17 MeV nucleon$^{-1}$ and outburst III required $sim$0.3 MeV nucleon$^{-1}$. These cooling observations could not be explained without shallow heating. The shallow heating for outburst II was not well constrained and could vary from $sim$0--2.2 MeV nucleon$^{-1}$, i.e., this outburst could in principle be explained without invoking shallow heating. We discuss the nature of the shallow heating and why it may occur at different strengths and depths during different outbursts.
We probe the properties of the transient X-ray pulsar MAXI J1409$-$619 through textit{RXTE} and textit{Swift} follow up observations of the outburst in 2010. We are able to phase connect the pulse arrival times for the 25 days episode during the outburst. We suggest that either an orbital model (with $P_{{rm{orb}}} simeq 14.7(4)$ days) or a noise process due to random torque fluctuations (with $S_r approx 1.3 times 10^{-18}$ Hz$^2$ s$^{-2}$ Hz$^{-1}$) is plausible to describe the residuals of the timing solution. The frequency derivatives indicate a positive torque-luminosity correlation, that implies a temporary accretion disc formation during the outburst. We also discover several quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) in company with their harmonics whose centroid frequencies decrease as the source flux decays. The variation of pulsed fraction and spectral power law index of the source with X-ray flux is interpreted as the sign of transition from a critical to a sub-critical accretion regime at the critical luminosity within the range of $6times 10^{37}$ erg s$^{-1}$ to $1.2times 10^{38}$ ergs s$^{-1}$. Using pulse-phase-resolved spectroscopy, we show that the phases with higher flux tend to have lower photon indices, indicating that the polar regions produce spectrally harder emission.
Black hole low mass X-ray binaries in their hard spectral state are found to display two different correlations between the radio emission from the compact jets and the X-ray emission from the inner accretion flow. Here, we present a large data set of quasi-simultaneous radio and X-ray observations of the recently discovered accreting black hole MAXI J1348-630 during its 2019/2020 outburst. Our results span almost six orders of magnitude in X-ray luminosity, allowing us to probe the accretion-ejection coupling from the brightest to the faintest phases of the outburst. We find that MAXI J1348-630 belongs to the growing population of outliers at the highest observed luminosities. Interestingly, MAXI J1348-630 deviates from the outlier track at $L_{rm X} lesssim 7 times 10^{35} (D / 2.2 {rm kpc})^2$ erg s$^{-1}$ and ultimately rejoins the standard track at $L_{rm X} simeq 10^{33} (D / 2.2 {rm kpc})^2$ erg s$^{-1}$, displaying a hybrid radio/X-ray correlation, observed only in a handful of sources. However, for MAXI J1348-630 these transitions happen at luminosities much lower than what observed for similar sources (at least an order of magnitude). We discuss the behaviour of MAXI J1348-630 in light of the currently proposed scenarios and we highlight the importance of future deep monitorings of hybrid correlation sources, especially close to the transitions and in the low luminosity regime.
We studied the outburst evolution and timing properties of the recently discovered X-ray transient MAXI J1348-630 as observed with NICER. We produced the fundamental diagrams commonly used to trace the spectral evolution, and power density spectra to study the fast X-ray variability. The main outburst evolution of MAXI J1348-630 is similar to that commonly observed in black hole transients. The source evolved from the hard state, through hard- and soft-intermediate states, into the soft state in the outburst rise, and back to the hard state in reverse during the outburst decay. At the end of the outburst, MAXI J1348-630 underwent two reflares with peak fluxes ~1 and ~2 orders of magnitude fainter than the main outburst, respectively. During the reflares, the source remained in the hard state only, without undergoing any state transitions, which is similar to the so-called failed outbursts. Different types of quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) are observed at different phases of the outburst. Based on our spectral-timing results, we conclude that MAXI J1348-630 is a black hole candidate.
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