The nature of the X-ray transient SAX J1711.6-3808

Abstract

SAX J1711.6-3808 is an X-ray transient in the Galactic bulge that was active from January through May of 2001 and whose maximum 1-200 keV luminosity was measured to be 5X10-9 erg/s/cm2 which is less than ~25% of the Eddington limit, if placed at a distance equal to that of the galactic center. We study the X-ray data that were taken of this moderately bright transient with instruments on BeppoSAX and RXTE. The spectrum shows two interesting features on top of a Comptonized continuum commonly observed in low-state X-ray binaries: a broad emission feature peaking at 7 keV and extending from 4 to 9 keV, and a soft excess with a color temperature below 1 keV which reveals itself only during one week of data. High time-resolution analysis of 412 ksec worth of data fails to show bursts, coherent or high-frequency quasi-periodic oscillations. Given the dynamic range of the flux measurements, this would be unusual if a neutron star were present. SAX J1711.6-3808 appears likely to contain a black hole. No quiescent optical counterpart could be identified in archival data within the 5"-radius XMM error circle, but the limits are not very constraining because of heavy extinction (Av=16).

Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics

References in corpus (8)

• The European Photon Imaging Camera on XMM-Newton: The MOS Cameras
• A Black Hole in the Superluminal source SAX J1819.3-2525 (V4641 Sgr)
• Discovery of a Second High Frequency QPO from the Microquasar GRS 1915+105
• BeppoSAX measurements of the bright gamma-ray burst 010222
• A four-hours long burst from Serpens X-1
• The 1998 outburst of the X-ray transient XTE J2012+381 as observed with BeppoSAX
• The new X-ray transient SAX J1711.6-3808: decoupling between its 3-20 keV luminosity and its state transitions
• Evolution of Iron K${}_{\alpha }$ Line Emission in the Black Hole Candidate GX 339-4

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• A Global Study of the Behaviour of Black Hole X-ray Binary Discs
• Failed-Transition outbursts in Black hole low-mass X-ray binaries
• The Spectrum of the Black Hole X-ray Nova V404 Cygni in Quiescence as Measured by XMM-Newton
• The hard to soft spectral transition in LMXBs - affected by recondensation of gas into an inner disk
• BeppoSAX-WFC monitoring of the Galactic Center region
• Variability and phase lags of the type-C quasi-periodic oscillation of MAXI J1348-630 with NICER
• Broad-band X-ray measurements of the black hole candidate XTE J1908+094
• A Short Review of Relativistic Iron Lines from Stellar-Mass Black Holes
• Constraining distance and inclination angle of V4641 Sgr using $SWIFT$ and $NuSTAR$ observations during low soft spectral state
• SAXJ1712.6-3739: a persistent hard X-ray source as monitored with INTEGRAL