We report on the analysis of the data collected by Swift, INTEGRAL and RXTE of the Black Hole Candidate (BHC) 4U 1630-47 during 3 consecutive outbursts occurred in 2006, 2008 and 2010, respectively. We show that, although a similar spectral and tempo
ral behaviour in the energy range between 2-10 keV, these 3 outbursts present pronounced differences above 20 keV. In fact, the 2010 outburst extends at high energies without any detectable cut-off until 150-200 keV, while the other two previous outbursts, occurred on 2006 and 2008, are not detected at all above 20 keV. Moreover, the 2008 outburst does not show any detectable hard state in its final phases and even during the 2010 outburst, the final hard state shows some peculiarities rarely observed in other BHC. We also investigate on the peculiar huge variation of 4U 1630-47 hydrogen column density (N$_{H}$) reported in the literature using the Swift/XRT data. In fact this instrument is one of the most suitable for this purpose thanks to its lower energy coverage.
4U 1630-472 is a recurrent X-ray transient classified as a black-hole candidate from its spectral and timing properties. One of the peculiarities of this source is the presence of regular outbursts with a recurrence period between 600 and 730 d that
has been observed since the discovery of the source in 1969. We report on a comparative study on the spectral and timing behaviour of three consecutive outbursts occurred in 2006, 2008 and 2010. We analysed all the data collected by the INTErnational Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL) and the Rossi X-ray timing Explorer (RXTE) during these three years of activity. We show that, in spite of having a similar spectral and timing behaviour in the energy range between 3 and 30 keV, these three outbursts show pronounced differences above 30 keV. In fact, the 2010 outburst extends at high energies without any detectable cut-off until 150-200 keV, while the two previous outbursts that occurred in 2006 and 2008 are not detected at all above 30 keV. Thus, in spite of a very similar accretion disk evolution, these three outbursts exhibit totally different characteristics of the Compton electron corona, showing a softening in their evolution rarely observed before in a low mass X-ray binary hosting a black hole. We argue the possibility that the unknown perturbation that causes the outbursts to be equally spaced in time could be at the origin of this particular behaviour. Finally we describe several possible scenarios that could explain the regularity of the outbursts, identifying the most plausible, such as a third body orbiting around the binary system.
