Study of the reflection spectrum of the accreting neutron star GX 3+1 using XMM-Newton and INTEGRAL

Abstract

Broad emission features of abundant chemical elements, such as Iron, are commonly seen in the X-ray spectra of accreting compact objects and their studies can provide useful information about the geometry of the accretion processes. In this work, we focus our attention on GX 3+1, a bright, persistent accreting low mass X-ray binary, classified as an atoll source. Its spectrum is well described by an accretion disc plus a stable comptonizing, optically thick corona which dominates the X-ray emission in the 0.3-20 keV energy band. In addition, four broad emission lines are found and we associate them with reflection of hard photons from the inner regions of the accretion disc where doppler and relativistic effects are important. We used self-consistent reflection models to fit the spectra of the 2010 XMM-Newton observation and the stacking of the whole datasets of 2010 INTEGRAL observations. We conclude that the spectra are consistent with reflection produced at ~10 gravitational radii by an accretion disc with an ionization parameter of xi~600 erg cm/s and viewed under an inclination angle of the system of ~35°. Furthermore, we detected for the first time for GX 3+1, the presence of a powerlaw component dominant at energies higher than 20 keV, possibly associated with an optically thin component of non-thermal electrons.

Accepted to appear on MNRAS, 9 pages, 5 figure

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• Study of the reflection spectrum of the LMXB 4U 1702-429
• The Galactic LMXB Population and the Galactic Centre Region
• New insights on the puzzling LMXB 1RXS J180408.9-342058: the intermediate state, the clocked type-I X-ray bursts and much more
• A re-analysis of the NuSTAR and XMM-Newton broad-band spectrum of Ser~X-1
• The Ultraluminous X-ray sources population of the galaxy NGC 7456
• Reflection component in the Bright Atoll Source GX 9+9
• High-frequency variability in neutron-star low-mass X-ray binaries
• The INTEGRAL view of the pulsating hard X-ray sky: from accreting and transitional millisecond pulsars to rotation-powered pulsars and magnetars
• Study of the reflection spectrum of the bright atoll source GX 3+1 with NuSTAR
• Quasi-simultaneous Integral, Swift, And Nustar Observations Of The New X-ray Clocked Burster 1rxsj180408.9-342058
• Fe K$\alpha$ and Fe K$\beta$ line detection in the NuSTAR spectrum of the ultra-bright Z-source Scorpius X-1
• AstroSat observation of rapid Type-I thermonuclear burst from the low mass X-ray binary GX 3+1
• Spectral study of neutron star low mass X-ray binary source 1A 1744-361