Searching for supergiant fast X-ray transients with Swift
P. Romano, E. Bozzo, P. Esposito, B. Sbarufatti, F. Haberl, G. Ponti, P. D'Avanzo, L. Ducci, A. Segreto, C. Jin, N. Masetti, M. Del Santo, S. Campana, V. Mangano
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Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics. 12 pages, 11 figures, 6 tables
Supergiant fast X-ray transients (SFXTs) are high mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) hosting a neutron star and an OB supergiant companion. We examine the available Swift data, as well as other new or archival/serendipitous data, on three sources: IGR J17407-2808, 2XMM J185114.3-000004, and IGR J18175-2419, whose X-ray characteristics qualify them as candidate SFXT, in order to explore their properties and test whether they are consistent with an SFXT nature. As IGR J17407-2808 and 2XMM J185114.3-000004 triggered the Burst Alert Telescope on board Swift, the Swift data allow us to provide their first arcsecond localisations, leading to an unequivocal identification of the source CXOU J174042.0-280724 as the soft X-ray counterpart of IGR J17407-2808, as well as their first broadband spectra, which can be fit with models generally describing accreting neutron stars in HMXBs. While still lacking optical spectroscopy to assess the spectral type of the companion, we propose 2XMM J185114.3-000004 as a very strong SFXT candidate. The nature of IGR J17407-2808 remains, instead, more uncertain. Its broad band properties cannot exclude that the emission originates from either a HMXB (and in that case, a SFXT) or, more likely, a low mass X-ray binary. Finally, based on the deep non-detection in our XRT monitoring campaign and a careful reanalysis of the original Integral data in which the discovery of the source was first reported, we show that IGR J18175-2419 is likely a spurious detection.
Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients (SFXTs) are HMXBs with OB supergiant companions. I review the results of the Swift SFXT Project, which since 2007 has been exploiting Swift's capabilities in a systematic study of SFXTs and supergiant X-ray binaries (SGXBs) by combining follow-ups of outbursts, when detailed broad-band spectroscopy is possible, with long-term monitoring campaigns, when the out-of-outburst fainter states can be observed. This strategy has led us to measure their duty cycles as a function of luminosity, to extract their differential luminosity distributions in the soft X-ray doma…
Wind-fed supergiant X-ray binaries are precious laboratories not only to study accretion under extreme gravity and magnetic field conditions, but also to probe still highly debated properties of massive star winds. These includes the so-called clumps, originated from the inherent instability of line driven winds, and larger structures. In this paper, we report on the results of the last (and not yet published) monitoring campaigns that our group has been carrying out since 2007 with both XMM-Newton and the Swift Neil Gehrels observatory. Data collected with the EPIC cameras on-board XMM-Newton…
Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients (SFXT) are High Mass X-ray Binaries displaying X-ray outbursts reaching peak luminosities of 10$^{38}$ erg/s and spend most of their life in more quiescent states with luminosities as low as 10$^{32}$-10$^{33}$ erg/s. The main goal of our comprehensive and uniform analysis of the SFXT Swift triggers is to provide tools to predict whether a transient which has no known X-ray counterpart may be an SFXT candidate. These tools can be exploited for the development of future missions exploring the variable X-ray sky through large FoV instruments. We examined all avai…
AX J1949.8+2534 is a candidate supergiant fast X-ray transient (SFXT) observed in outburst by INTEGRAL (IGR J19498+2534). We report on the results of six Neil Gehrels Swift-XRT, one Chandra, and one NuSTAR observation of the source. We find evidence of rapid X-ray variability on a few ks timescales. Fortunately, Chandra observed the source in a relatively bright state, allowing us to confidently identify the optical/NIR counterpart of the source. We also obtained an optical spectrum of this counterpart, which shows an H$α$ emission line and He I absorption features. The photometry and spectrum…
Multi-mission Investigation of X-ray Superorbital Modulation in the Supergiant High Mass X-ray Binary 4U 1538-52
The Catholic University of America（美国天主教大学）；University of Maryland, Baltimore County（马里兰大学巴尔的摩县分校）；NASA Goddard Space Flight Center（美国宇航局戈达德太空飞行中心）；Maryland Institute College of Art（马里兰艺术学院）
We constructed the cumulative luminosity distributions of most supergiant fast X-ray transients (SFXTs) and the classical supergiant X-ray binary (SgXB) IGR J18027-2016 by taking advantage of the long term monitoring of these sources carried out with Swift/XRT (0.3-10 keV). Classical SgXBs are characterized by cumulative distributions with a single knee around $\sim$10$^{36}$-10$^{37}$ erg/s, while all SFXTs are found to be significantly sub-luminous and the main knee in their distributions is shifted at lower luminosities ($<$10$^{35}$ erg/s). As the latter are below the sensitivity limit of …
In this review I briefly describe the nature of the three kinds of High-Mass X-ray Binaries (HMXBs), accreting through: (i) Be circumstellar disc, (ii) supergiant stellar wind, and (iii) Roche lobe filling supergiants. A previously unknown population of HMXBs hosting supergiant stars has been revealed in the last years, with multi-wavelength campaigns including high energy (INTEGRAL, Swift, XMM, Chandra) and optical/infrared (mainly ESO) observations. This population is divided between obscured supergiant HMXBs, and supergiant fast X-ray transients (SFXTs), characterized by short and intense X…
IGR J17503-2636 is a hard X-ray transient discovered by INTEGRAL on 2018 August 11. This was the first ever reported X-ray emission from this source. Following the discovery, follow-up observations were carried out with Swift, Chandra, NICER, and NuSTAR. We report in this paper the analysis and results obtained from all these X-ray data. Based on the fast variability in the X-ray domain, the spectral energy distribution in the 0.5-80 keV energy range, and the reported association with a highly reddened OB supergiant at ~10 kpc, we conclude that IGR J17503-2636 is most likely a relatively faint…
The usage of cumulative luminosity distributions, constructed thanks to the long-term observations available through wide field hard X-ray imagers, has been recently exploited to study the averaged high energy emission (>17 keV) from Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients (SFXTs) and classical Supergiant High Mass X-ray Binaries (SgXBs). Here, we take advantage of the long term monitorings now available with Swift/XRT to construct for the first time the cumulative luminosity distributions of a number of SFXTs and the classical SgXB IGR J18027-2016 in the soft X-ray domain with a high sensitivity foc…
Supergiant fast X-ray transients (SFXTs) are high mass X-ray binaries associated with OB supergiant companions and characterised by an X-ray flaring behaviour whose dynamical range reaches 5 orders of magnitude on timescales of a few hundred to thousands of seconds. Current investigations concentrate on finding possible mechanisms to inhibit accretion in SFXTs and explain their unusually low average X-ray luminosity. We present the Swift observations of an exceptionally bright outburst displayed by the SFXT IGR J17544-2619 on 2014 October 10 when the source achieved a peak luminosity of $3\tim…
We searched for thermonuclear X-ray bursts from Galactic neutron stars in all event mode data of the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory collected until March 31, 2018. In particular, we are interested in the intermediate-duration bursts (shell flashes fueled by thick helium piles) with the ill-understood phenomenon of strong flux fluctuations. Nine such bursts have been discussed in the literature to date. Swift is particularly suitable for finding additional examples. We find and list a total of 134 X-ray bursts; 44 are detected with BAT only, 41 with XRT only, and 49 with both. Twenty-eight burs…
In this paper we report on a long multi-wavelength observational campaign of the supergiant fast X-ray transient prototype IGR J17544-2619. A 150 ks-long observation was carried out simultaneously with XMM-Newton and NuSTAR, catching the source in an initial faint X-ray state and then undergoing a bright X-ray outburst lasting about 7 ks. We studied the spectral variability during outburst and quiescence by using a thermal and bulk Comptonization model that is typically adopted to describe the X-ray spectral energy distribution of young pulsars in high mass X-ray binaries. Although the statist…
