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Register a new userChasing candidate Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients in the 1,000 orbits INTEGRAL/IBIS catalog
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We report results from an investigation at hard X-rays (above 18 keV) and soft X-rays (below 10 keV) of a sample of X-ray transients located on the Galactic plane and detected with the bursticity method, as reported in the latest 1,000 orbits INTEGRAL/IBIS catalog. Our main aim has been to individuate those with X-rays characteristics strongly resembling Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients (SFXTs). As a result, we found four unidentified fast X-ray transients which now can be considered good SFXT candidates. In particular, three transients (IGR J16374-5043, IGR J17375-3022 and IGR J12341-6143) were very poorly studied in the literature before the current work, and our findings largely improved the knowledge of their X-ray characteristics. The other transient (XTE J1829-098) was previously studied in detail only below 10 keV, conversely the current work provides the first detailed study in outburst above 18 keV. In addition we used archival infrared observations of the transients to pinpoint, among the field objects, their best candidate counterpart. We found that their photometric properties are compatible with an early type spectral classification, further supporting our proposed nature of SFXTs. Infrared spectroscopy is advised to confirm or disprove our interpretation. The reported findings allowed a significant increase of the sample of candidate SFXTs known to date, effectively doubling their number.
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We review the status of our knowledge on supergiant fast X-ray transients (SFXTs), a new hot topic in multi wavelength studies of binaries. We discuss the mechanisms believed to power these transients and then highlight the unique contribution Swift is giving to this field, and how new technology complements and sometimes changes the view of things.
Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients are a class of Galactic High Mass X-ray Binaries with supergiant companions. Their extreme transient X-ray flaring activity was unveiled thanks to INTEGRAL/IBIS observations. The SFXTs dynamic range, with X-ray luminosities from 1E32 erg/s to 1E37 erg/s, and long time intervals of low X-ray emission, are puzzling, given that both their donor star properties and their orbital and spin periodicities seem very similar to those displayed by massive binaries with persistent X-ray emission. Clumpy supergiant winds, accretion barriers, orbital geometries and wind anisotropies are often invoked to explain their behavior, but still several open issues remain. A review of the main recent observational results will be outlined, together with a summary of the new scenarios proposed to explain their bright flaring X-ray activity. The main result of a long Suzaku observation of the SFXT IGRJ16479-4514 with the shortest orbital period is also briefly summarized. The observation of the X-ray eclipse in this source allowed us to directly probe the supergiant wind density at the orbital separation, leading to the conclusion that it is too large to justify the low X-ray luminosity. A mechanism reducing the accretion rate onto the compact object is required.
We have characterized the typical temporal behaviour of the bright X-ray flares detected from the three Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients showing the most extreme transient behaviour (XTEJ1739-302, IGRJ17544-2619, SAXJ1818.6-1703). We focus here on the cumulative distributions of the waiting-time (time interval between two consecutive X-ray flares), and the duration of the hard X-ray activity (duration of the brightest phase of an SFXT outburst), as observed by INTEGRAL/IBIS in the energy band 17-50 keV. Adopting the cumulative distribution of waiting-times, it is possible to identify the typical timescale that clearly separates different outbursts, each composed by several single flares at ks timescale. This allowed us to measure the duration of the brightest phase of the outbursts from these three targets, finding that they show heavy-tailed cumulative distributions. We observe a correlation between the total energy emitted during SFXT outbursts and the time interval covered by the outbursts (defined as the elapsed time between the first and the last flare belonging to the same outburst as observed by INTEGRAL). We show that temporal properties of flares and outbursts of the sources, which share common properties regardless different orbital parameters, can be interpreted in the model of magnetized stellar winds with fractal structure from the OB-supergiant stars.
Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients (SFXT) are a class of High-Mass X-ray Binaries whose optical counterparts are O or B supergiant stars, and whose X-ray outbursts are ~ 4 orders of magnitude brighter than the quiescent state. LOFT, the Large Observatory For X-ray Timing, with its coded mask Wide Field Monitor (WFM) and its 10 m^2 class collimated X-ray Large Area Detector (LAD), will be able to dramatically deepen the knowledge of this class of sources. It will provide simultaneous high S/N broad-band and time-resolved spectroscopy in several intensity states, and long term monitoring that will yield new determinations of orbital periods, as well as spin periods. We show the results of an extensive set of simulations performed using previous observational results of these sources obtained with Swift and XMM-Newton. The WFM will detect all SFXT flares within its field of view down to a 15-20 mCrab in 5ks. Our simulations describe the outbursts at several intensities (F_(2-10keV)=5.9x10^-9 to 5.5x10^-10 erg cm^-2 s^-1), the intermediate and most common state (10^-11 erg cm^-2 s^-1), and the low state (1.2x10^-12 to 5x10^-13 erg cm^-2 s^-1). We also considered large variations of N_H and the presence of emission lines, as observed by Swift and XMM-Newton.
I present a brief up-to-date review of the current understanding of Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients, with an emphasis on the observational point of view. After more than a decade since their discovery, a remarkable progress has been made in getting the picture of their phenomenology at X-ray energies. However, a similar in-depth investigation of the properties of the supergiant companions is needed, but has started more recently. A multifrequency approach is the key to fully understand the physical mechanism driving the SFXT behaviour, still under debate.
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