Spectral states of the X-ray binary IGR J17091--3624 observed by INTEGRAL and RXTE

Abstract

IGR J17091-3624 was discovered in 2003 April by INTEGRAL/IBIS during its Galactic Centre Deep Exposure programme. The source was initially detectable only in the 40--100 keV range, but after two days was also detected in the 15-40 keV range. Its flux had by then increased to 40 mCrab and 25 mCrab in the 15-40 keV and 40-100 keV bands respectively. RXTE observed the source simultaneously on 2003 April 20, with an effective exposure of 2 ksec. We report here the spectral and temporal evolution of the source, which shows a transition between the hard and soft states. We analyse in detail the RXTE/INTEGRAL Comptonised spectrum of the hard state as well as the JEM-X detection of a blackbody component during the source softening. Even though the source spectral behaviour and time variability show a similarity with the outburst of the black-hole candidate IGR J17464-3213 (= H1743-322), observed by INTEGRAL in 2003, the nature of its compact object (BH vs. NS) remains controversial.

13 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal

Cited by in corpus (10)

• The 2003 Outburst of the X-ray Transient H 1743-322: Comparisons with the Black Hole Microquasar XTE J1550-564
• Multi-wavelength observations of Galactic hard X-ray sources discovered by INTEGRAL. I. The nature of the companion star
• Determination of mass of IGR J17091-3624 from "Spectro-Temporal" variations during onset-phase of the 2011 outburst
• A search for counterparts to massive X-ray binaries using photometric catalogues
• INTEGRAL/IBIS 17-yr hard X-ray all-sky survey
• INTEGRAL 11-year hard X-ray survey above 100 keV
• Infrared study of H1743-322 in outburst: a radio-quiet and NIR-dim microquasar
• Swift/XRT, Chandra and XMM-Newton observations of IGR J17091-3624 as it returns into quiescence
• Similarities and Differences in Accretion Flow Properties between GRS 1915+105 and IGR J17091-3624: a Case Study
• Light curve fingerprints: an automated approach to the extraction of X-ray variability patterns with feature aggregation -- an example application to GRS 1915+105