Millihertz quasi-periodic oscillations and broad iron line from LMC X-1


الملخص بالإنكليزية

We study the temporal and energy spectral characteristics of the persistent black hole X-ray binary LMC X-1 using two XMM-Newton and a Suzaku observation. We report the discovery of low frequency (~ 26-29 mHz) quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs). We also report the variablity of the broad iron K-alpha line studied earlier with Suzaku. The QPOs are found to be weak with fractional rms amplitude in the ~ 1-2 % range and quality factor Q~2-10 . They are accompanied by weak red noise or zero-centered Lorentzian components with rms variability at the ~ 1-3 % level. The energy spectra consists of three varying components - multicolour disk blackbody (kT_{in} ~ 0.7-0.9 keV), high energy power-law tail (Gamma ~ 2.4 - 3.3) and a broad iron line at 6.4-6.9 keV. The broad iron line, the QPO and the strong power-law component are not always present. The QPOs and the broad iron line appear to be clearly detected in the presence of a strong power-law component. The broad iron line is found to be weaker when the disk is likely truncated and absent when the power-law component almost vanished. These results suggest that the QPO and the broad iron line together can be used to probe the dynamics of the accretion disk and the corona.

تحميل البحث