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Register a new userOn the X-ray properties of V Sge and its relation to the supersoft X-ray binaries
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We investigate the ROSAT X-ray properties of V Sge, which has been proposed to be related to supersoft X-ray binaries. During optical bright states, V Sge is a faint hard X-ray source, while during optical faint states (V >=12 mag), V Sge is a `supersoft X-ray source. Spectral fitting confirms that V~Sges X-ray properties during its soft X-ray state may be similar to those of supersoft X-ray binaries, although a much lower luminosity cannot be excluded. It is possible to explain the different optical/X-ray states by a variable amount of extended uneclipsed matter, which during the optical bright states contributes significantly to the optical flux and completely absorbes the soft X-ray component. An additional, perhaps permanent, hard X-ray component, such as a bremsstrahlung component with a 0.1-2.4 keV luminosity of ~10^30 erg/s, must be present to explain the X-ray properties during the optical bright/hard X-ray state.
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AX J1754.2-2754, 1RXS J171824.2-402934 and 1RXH J173523.7-354013 are three persistent neutron star low-mass X-ray binaries that display a 2--10 keV accretion luminosity Lx of only (1-10)x1E34 erg s-1 (i.e., only ~0.005-0.05 % of the Eddington limit). The phenomenology of accreting neutron stars which accrete at such low accretion rates is not yet well known and the reason why they have such low accretion rates is also not clear. Therefore, we have obtained XMM-Newton data of these three sources and here we report our analysis of the high-quality X-ray spectra we have obtained for them. We find that AX J1754.2-2754 has Lx~1E35 erg s-1, while the other two have X-ray luminosities about an order of magnitude lower. However, all sources have a similar, relatively soft, spectrum with a photon index of 2.3-2.5, when the spectrum is fitted with an absorbed power-law model. This model fits the data of AX J1754.2-2754 adequately, but it cannot fit the data obtained for 1RXS J171824.2-402934 and 1RXH J173523.7-354013. For those sources a clear soft thermal component is needed to fit their spectra. This soft component contributes 40% - 50% to the 0.5-10 keV flux of the sources. When including this additional spectral component, the power-law photon indices are significantly lower. It can be excluded that a similar component with similar contributions to the 2-10 keV X-ray flux is present for AX J1754.2-2754, indicating that the soft spectrum of this source is mostly due to the fact that the power-law component itself is not hard. We note that we cannot excluded that weaker soft component is present in the spectrum of this source which only contributes up to ~25% to the 0.5-10 keV X-ray flux. We discuss our results in the context of what is known of accreting neutron stars at very low accretion rate.
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