IGR J17062-6143 is an Accreting Millisecond X-ray Pulsar

Abstract

We present the discovery of 163.65 Hz X-ray pulsations from IGR J17062-6143 in the only observation obtained from the source with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer. This detection makes IGR J17062-6143 the lowest-frequency accreting millisecond X-ray pulsar presently known. The pulsations are detected in the 2 - 12 keV band with an overall significance of 4.3 sigma, and an observed pulsed amplitude of 5.54 +- 0.67 % (in this band). Both dynamic power spectral and coherent phase timing analysis indicate that the pulsation frequency is decreasing during the 1.2 ks observation in a manner consistent with orbital motion of the neutron star. Because the observation interval is short, we cannot precisely measure the orbital period; however, periods shorter than 17 minutes are excluded at 90 % confidence. For the range of acceptable circular orbits the inferred binary mass function substantially overlaps the observed range for the AMXP population as a whole.

9 pages, 5 figures, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters

References in corpus (4)

• INTEGRAL observations of the cosmic X-ray background in the 5-100 keV range via occultation by the Earth
• An in-depth study of a neutron star accreting at low Eddington rate: On the possibility of a truncated disk and an outflow
• X-ray Reflection and An Exceptionally Long Thermonuclear Helium Burst from IGR J17062-6143
• Discovery of a new accreting millisecond X-ray pulsar in the globular cluster NGC 2808

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• Long-term coherent timing of the accreting millisecond pulsar IGR J17062-6143
• The INTEGRAL view of the pulsating hard X-ray sky: from accreting and transitional millisecond pulsars to rotation-powered pulsars and magnetars
• A strongly changing accretion morphology during the outburst decay of the neutron star X-ray binary 4U 1608-52
• On the minimum spin period of accreting pulsars
• Deciphering Accretion-Driven Starquakes in Recycled Millisecond Pulsars using Gravitational Waves
• On the impact of an intermediate duration X-ray burst on the accretion environment in IGR J17062-6143