The first detection of X-ray polarization in a newly discovered Galactic transient Swift\,J151857.0-572147

Abstract

We study the spectro-polarimetric properties of a newly discovered black hole X-ray binary Swift\,J151857.0-572147 jointly using {\it IXPE} and {\it NuSTAR} observations during March 2024. The analysis of {\it IXPE} data reports the first detection of X-ray polarization with degree (PD) $1.34\pm 0.27$ and polarization angle (PA) $-13.69^{\circ }\pm 5.85^{\circ }$ using model-independent approach, while the model-dependent analysis gives PD $1.18\pm 0.23$ and PA $-14.01^{\circ }\pm 5.80^{\circ }$. The joint spectral analysis of the broadband data and {\it NuSTAR} analysis in isolation constrain the mass of the central black hole between $\sim 9.2\pm 1.6-10.1\pm 1.7M_{\odot }$ and a moderate spin parameter of $\sim 0.6\pm 0.1-0.7\pm 0.2$ with disk inclination $\sim 35^{\circ }\pm 7^{\circ }-46^{\circ }\pm 15^{\circ }$. The power-law photon index and cutoff energy are $2.19\pm 0.03-2.47\pm 0.06$ and $\sim 36\pm 4-78\pm 10$ keV, suggesting a transition to the soft spectral state (SS). Additionally, a relatively lower corona size of $6\pm 1-9\pm 2$ $r_S$, a low mass outflow rate ($<3$\% ${\dot{M}}_{\mathrm{Edd}}$), and the best-fitted halo accretion is less compared to the disk accretion rate further confirms the same state. The low PD detected in the SS can be due to repeated scattering inside the dense corona and the dominant emission from the disk, agrees with the low spin and low disk inclination. The hydrogen column density obtained from the fit is relatively high $\sim 4-5\times 10^{22}$ cm${}^{-2}$.

10 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ, comments welcome. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2403.14169