An INTEGRAL Hard X-ray Survey of the Large Magellanic Cloud

Abstract

Two observation campaigns performed in 2003 and 2004 with the INTEGRAL satellite have provided the first sensitive survey of the Large Magellanic Cloud with an imaging instrument in the hard X-ray range (15 keV - 10 MeV). The high energy flux and long term variability of the black hole candidate LMC X-1 was measured for the first time without the contamination of the nearby (~25') young pulsar PSR B0540-69. We studied the accreting pulsar LMC X-4, constraining the size of the hard X-ray emitting region (<~3E10 cm) from the analysis of its eclipses, and measuring its spin period (13.497+/-0.005 s) in the 20-40 keV band. LMC X-3 was not detected, being in a soft state during the first observation and possibly in an extremely low state in the second one. Thanks to the large field of view of the IBIS instrument, we could study also other sources falling serendipitously in the observed sky region around the LMC: the Galactic low mass X-ray binary EXO 0748-676, the accreting pulsar SMC X-1 in the Small Magellanic Cloud, and the Active Galactic Nucleus IRAS 04575--7537. In addition we discovered five new hard X-ray sources, two of which most likely belong to the LMC.

9 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in A&A main journal

References in corpus (3)

• RXTE all-sky slew survey. Catalog of X-ray sources at |b|>10deg
• INTEGRAL discovery of persistent hard X-ray emission from the Soft Gamma Ray Repeater SGR 1806-20
• The broad-band X-ray spectrum of the dipping Low Mass X-ray Binary EXO0748--676

Cited by in corpus (14)

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• States and transitions in black-hole binaries
• A Determination of the Spin of the Black Hole Primary in LMC X-1
• Unveiling the nature of INTEGRAL objects through optical spectroscopy. V. Identification and properties of 21 southern hard X-ray sources
• Star-formation history and X-ray binary populations: the case of the Large Magellanic Cloud
• BAT X-ray Survey - III: X-ray Spectra and Statistical Properties
• AKARI IRC survey of the Large Magellanic Cloud: Outline of the survey and initial results
• Unveiling the nature of INTEGRAL objects through optical spectroscopy. IV. A study of six new hard X-ray sources
• Swift follow-up observations of 17 INTEGRAL sources of uncertain or unknown nature
• INTEGRAL/IBIS deep extragalactic survey: M81, LMC and 3C 273/Coma fields
• X-ray observations of the Large Magellanic Cloud pulsar PSR B0540-69 and its PWN
• Anomalous Low States and Long Term Variability in the Black Hole Binary LMC X-3
• The INTEGRAL view of the pulsating hard X-ray sky: from accreting and transitional millisecond pulsars to rotation-powered pulsars and magnetars
• The catalog of variable sources detected by INTEGRAL I: Catalog and Techniques