Discovery of twin kHz quasi periodic oscillations in the low mass X-ray binary XTE J1701-407

Abstract

We report the discovery of kHz quasi periodic oscillations (QPOs) in three Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer observations of the low mass X-ray binary (LMXB) XTE J1701-407. In one of the observations we detect a kHz QPO with a characteristic frequency of 1153 +/- 5 Hz, while in the other two observations we detect twin QPOs at characteristic frequencies of 740 +/- 5 Hz, 1112 +/- 17 Hz and 740 +/- 11 Hz, 1098 +/- 5 Hz. All detections happen when XTE J1701-407 was in its high intensity soft state, and their single trial significance are in the 3.1-7.5 sigma range. The frequency difference in the centroid frequencies of the twin kHz QPOs (385 +/- 13 Hz) is one of the largest seen till date. The 3-30 keV fractional rms amplitude of the upper kHz QPO varies between ~18 % and ~30 %. XTE J1701-407, with a persistent luminosity close to 1 % of the Eddington limit, is among the small group of low luminosity kHz QPO sources and has the highest rms for the upper kHz QPO detected in any source. The X-ray spectral and variability characteristics of this source indicate its atoll source nature.

10 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (14)

• Modelling the behaviour of accretion flows in X-ray binaries
• XTE J1701-462 and its Implications for the Nature of Subclasses in Low-Magnetic-Field Neutron Star Low-Mass X-Ray Binaries
• X-ray time variability across the atoll source states of 4U 1636--53
• Variability of X-ray binaries from an oscillating hot corona
• Analysing the atolls: X-ray spectral transitions of accreting neutron stars
• On the maximum amplitude and coherence of the kilohertz quasi-periodic oscillations in low-mass X-ray binaries
• Is there a link between the neutron-star spin and the frequency of the kilohertz quasi-periodic oscillations?
• Millihertz Oscillation Frequency Drift Predicts the Occurrence of Type I X-ray Bursts
• INTEGRAL observations of the variability of OAO 1657-415
• The correlations between the spin frequencies and kHz QPOs of Neutron Stars in LMXBs
• Type I X-ray bursts, burst oscillations and kHz quasi-periodic oscillations in the neutron star system IGR J17191-2821
• The Swift capture of a long X-ray burst from XTE J1701-407
• The new intermediate long bursting source XTE J1701-407
• Detection of a 1258 Hz high-amplitude kilohertz quasi-periodic oscillation in the ultra-compact X-ray binary 1A 1246-588

Cited by in corpus (4)

• NuSTAR and XMM-Newton observations of the extreme ultraluminous X-ray source NGC 5907 ULX1: A Vanishing Act
• Mass of intermediate black hole in the source M82 X-1 restricted by models of twin high-frequency quasi-periodic oscillations
• Mass and spin measurements for the neutron star 4U1608-52 through the relativistic precession model
• Test of the string loop oscillation model using kHz quasiperiodic oscillations in a neutron star binary