SRG/ART-XC discovery of SRGA J204318.2+443815: Towards the complete population of faint X-ray pulsars




Lutovinov AA, Tsygankov SS, Mereminskiy IA, Molkov SV, Semena AN, Arefiev VA, Bikmaev IF, Djupvik AA, Gilfanov MR, Karasev DI, Lapshov IY, Medvedev PS, Shtykovsky AE, Sunyaev RA, Tkachenko AY, Anand S, Ashley MCB, De K, Kasliwal MM, Kulkarni SR, van Roestel J, Yao Y

PublisherEDP Sciences

2022

Astronomy and Astrophysics

ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS

ASTRON ASTROPHYS

A28

661

9

0004-6361

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202141630

https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202141630

https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/176011870

https://arxiv.org/abs/2107.05587



We report the discovery of the new long-period X-ray pulsar SRGA J204318.2+443815/SRGe J204319.0+443820 in a Be binary system. The source was found in the second all-sky survey by the Mikhail Pavlinsky ART-XC telescope on board the SRG mission. The followup observations with XMM-Newton, NICER, and NuSTAR allowed us to discover a strong coherent signal in the source light curve with a period of ~742 s. The pulsed fraction was found to depend on an increase in energy from ~20% in soft X-rays to >50% at high energies, as is typical for X-ray pulsars. The source has a quite hard spectrum with an exponential cutoff at high energies and a bolometric luminosity of Lx ≃ 4 x 1035 erg s-1. The X-ray position of the source is found to be consistent with the optical transient ZTF18abjpmzf, located at a distance of ~8.0 kpc. Dedicated optical and infrared observations with the RTT-150, NOT, Keck, and Palomar telescopes revealed a number of emission lines (Hα, He I, and the Paschen and Braket series) with a strongly absorbed continuum. According to the SRG scans and archival XMM-Newton data, the source flux is moderately variable (by a factor of 4-10) on timescales of several months and years. All this suggests that SRGA J204318.2+443815/SRGe J204319.0+443820 is a new quasipersistent low-luminosity X-ray pulsar in a distant binary system with a Be-star of the B0-B2e class. Thus the SRG observatory allowed us to unveil a hidden population of faint objects, including a population of slowly rotating X-ray pulsars in Be systems.


Last updated on 2024-26-11 at 15:19