Propeller effect in the transient X-ray pulsar SMC X-2

Abstract

We report the results of the monitoring campaign of the transient X-ray pulsar SMC X-2 performed with the Swift/XRT telescope over the period of 2015 September - 2016 January during the Type II outburst. During this event, the bolometric luminosity of the source ranged from $\simeq 10^{39}$ down to several$\times 10^{34}$ erg/s. Moreover, we discovered its dramatic drop by a factor of more than 100 below the limiting value of $L_{\lim }\simeq 4\times 10^{36}$ erg/s, which can be interpreted as a transition to the propeller regime. These measurements make SMC X-2 the sixth pulsating X-ray source where such a transition is observed and allow us to estimate the magnetic field of the neutron star in the system $B\simeq 3\times 10^{12}$ G, which is in agreement with independent results of the spectral analysis.

arXiv comment8 pages, 2 figures, accepted to ApJ

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