Hard X-ray emission cutoff in anomalous X-ray pulsar 4U 0142+61 detected by INTEGRAL

Abstract

The anomalous X-ray pulsar 4U 0142+61 was studied by the INTEGRAL observations. The hard X-ray spectrum of 18 -- 500 keV for 4U 0142+61 was derived using near 9 years of INTEGRAL/IBIS data. We obtained the average hard X-ray spectrum of 4U 0142+61 with all available data. The spectrum of 4U 0142+61 can be fitted with a power-law with an exponential high energy cutoff. This average spectrum is well fitted with a power-law of $\Gamma \sim 0.51\pm 0.11$ plus a cutoff energy at $128.6\pm 17.2$ keV. The hard X-ray flux of the source from 20 -- 150 keV showed no significant variations (within 20$\%$) from 2003 -- 2011. The spectral profiles have some variability in nine years: photon index varied from 0.3 -- 1.5, and cutoff energies of 110 -- 250 keV. The detection of the high energy cutoff around 130 keV shows some constraints on the radiation mechanisms of magnetars and possibly probes the differences between magnetar and accretion models for these special class of neutron stars. Future HXMT observations could provide stronger constraints on the hard X-ray spectral properties of this source and other magnetar candidates.

9 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables, figures are updated, new data are added, conclusion does not change, to be published in RAA

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Resonant Inverse Compton Scattering Spectra from Highly-magnetized Neutron Stars
• Magnetars and Axion-like Particles: Probes with the Hard X-ray Spectrum
• A magnetic white-dwarf accretion model for the anomalous X-ray pulsar 4U 0142+61
• Magnetar Hard X-Ray Emission from Axion-like Particle Conversion
• Resonant Inverse Compton Scattering and Hard X-ray Emission in Magnetar Magnetospheres