The complex spectral behavior of the newly discovered neutron star X-ray binary Swift J1858.6-0814

Abstract

We report on the \nustar{} observation of the newly discovered neutron star X-ray binary Swift~J1858.6-0814 taken on 23rd March 2019. The light curve of the source exhibits several large flares during some time intervals of this observation. The source is softer in the high-intensity interval where the large flaring activity mainly occurs. We perform time-resolved spectroscopy on the source by extracting spectra for two different intensity intervals. The source was observed with a $3-79 \kev{}$ luminosity of $\sim 9.68\times 10^{36}$ ergs/s and $\sim 4.78\times 10^{36}$ ergs/s for high and low-intensity interval, respectively assuming a distance of $15$ kpc. We find a large value of the absorbing column density (${\mathrm{N}}_{\mathrm{H}}\sim 1.1\times 10^{23}$ cm${}^{-2}$), and it appears to be uncorrelated with the observed flux of the source. Each spectrum shows evidence of Fe K$\alpha$ emission in the $5-7$\kev{} energy band, an absorption edge around $\sim 7-8$\kev{}, and a broad Compton hump above $15$\kev{}, indicating the presence of a reflection spectrum. The observed features are well explained by the contribution of a relativistic reflection model and a partially covering absorption model. From the best-fit spectral model, we found an inner disc radius to be $4.87_{-0.96}^{+1.63}{R}_{ISCO}$ (for the high-intensity interval) and $5.68_{-2.78}^{+9.54}{R}_{ISCO}$ (for the low-intensity interval), indicating a significant disc truncation. The disk inclination is found to be relatively low, $i<33^0$. We further place an upper limit on this source's magnetic field strength considering the disc is truncated at the magnetospheric radius.

13 pages, 14 figures, 3 Tables, Accepted for publication in MNRAS

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