Fast X-ray transients in NuSTAR data

Abstract

Fast X-ray transients (FXTs) are flashes of X-rays that last for a few hundreds of seconds to a few hours. An enigmatic population of these transients that did not have a clear origin has been known for several decades, mostly found serendipitously in soft X-ray imaging observations. Recent progress in this field by Einstein Probe has found that many FXTs are associated with gamma-ray bursts and the collapse of massive stars. Motivated by this, we searched the NuSTAR archive in the harder 3--79 keV band for $\sim 1000$ s duration transients. From 204 Ms of exposure we present five candidate FXTs, four of which are spectrally hard, with power-law indices $-3<\hat{I}“<0$, standing them apart from FXTs discovered in the soft band. Three have potential associations with galaxies at $z=0.1-2$, implying 3--79 keV luminosities of $10^{43}$ to $10^{48}$ erg s${}^{-1}$ and volumetric event rates of 125--2900 Gpc${}^{-3}$ yr${}^{-1}$. The properties of these NuSTAR FXTs most resemble low-luminosity gamma-ray bursts, and would be much more common than their higher-luminosity counterparts in this redshift range.

Accepted for publication in ApJ