paper

Drop in the hard pulsed fraction and a candidate cyclotron line in IGR J16320-4751 seen by NuSTAR

arXiv:2305.07068 · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/acd541

Abstract

We report on a timing and spectral analysis of a 50-ks NuSTAR observation of IGR J16320-4751 (= AX J1631.9-4752); a high-mass X-ray binary hosting a slowly-rotating neutron star. In this observation from 2015, the spin period was 1,308.8+/-0.4 s giving a period derivative dP/dt ~ 2E-8 s s-1 when compared with the period measured in 2004. In addition, the pulsed fraction decreased as a function of energy, as opposed to the constant trend that was seen previously. This suggests a change in the accretion geometry of the system during the intervening 11 years. The phase-averaged spectra were fit with the typical model for accreting pulsars: a power law with an exponential cutoff. This left positive residuals at 6.4 keV attributable to the known iron K-alpha line, as well as negative residuals around 14 keV from a candidate cyclotron line detected at a significance of 5-sigma. We found no significant differences in the spectral parameters across the spin period, other than the expected changes in flux and component normalizations. A flare lasting around 5 ks was captured during the first half of the observation where the X-ray emission hardened and the local column density decreased. Finally, the binary orbital period was refined to 8.9912+/-0.0078 d thanks to Swift/BAT monitoring data from 2005-2022.

17 pages, 11 figures, Referee-revised version accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal

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