677 research outputs found
Revealing the X-ray source in IRAS 13224-3809 through flux-dependent reverberation lags
IRAS 13224-3809 was observed in 2011 for 500 ks with the XMM-Newton
observatory. We detect highly significant X-ray lags between soft (0.3 - 1 keV)
and hard (1.2 - 5 keV) energies. The hard band lags the soft at low frequencies
(i.e. hard lag), while the opposite (i.e. soft lag) is observed at high
frequencies. In this paper, we study the lag during flaring and quiescent
periods. We find that the frequency and absolute amplitude of the soft lag is
different during high-flux and low-flux periods. During the low flux intervals,
the soft lag is detected at higher frequencies and with smaller amplitude.
Assuming that the soft lag is associated with the light travel time between
primary and reprocessed emission, this behaviour suggests that the X-ray source
is more compact during low-flux intervals, and irradiates smaller radii of the
accretion disc (likely because of light bending effects). We continue with an
investigation of the lag dependence on energy, and find that isolating the
low-flux periods reveals a strong lag signature at the Fe K line energy,
similar to results found using 1.3 Ms of data on another well known Narrow-Line
Seyfert I galaxy, 1H0707-495.Comment: 6 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
The curious time lags of PG 1244+026: Discovery of the iron K reverberation lag
High-frequency iron K reverberation lags, where the red wing of the line
responds before the line centroid, are a robust signature of relativistic
reflection off the inner accretion disc. In this letter, we report the
discovery of the Fe K lag in PG 1244+026 from ~120 ks of data (1 orbit of the
XMM-Newton telescope). The amplitude of the lag with respect to the continuum
is 1000 s at a frequency of ~1e-4 Hz. We also find a possible
frequency-dependence of the line: as we probe higher frequencies (i.e. shorter
timescales from a smaller emitting region) the Fe K lag peaks at the red wing
of the line, while at lower frequencies (from a larger emitting region) we see
the dominant reflection lag from the rest frame line centroid. The mean energy
spectrum shows a strong soft excess, though interestingly, there is no
indication of a soft lag. Given that this source has radio emission and it has
little reported correlated variability between the soft excess and the hard
band, we explore one possible explanation in which the soft excess in this
source is dominated by the steep power-law like emission from a jet, and that a
corona (or base of the jet) irradiates the inner accretion disc, creating the
blurred reflection features evident in the spectrum and the lag. General
Relativistic ray-tracing models fit the Fe K lag well, with the best-fit giving
a compact X-ray source at a height of 5 gravitational radii and a black hole
mass of 1.3e7 Msun.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, resubmitted to MNRAS after moderate revisions.
This paper focuses on the discovery of the Fe K reverberation lag in PG
1244+026. We point the interested reader to Alston, Done & Vaughan (See
today: arXiv:submit/0851673), which focuses on the soft lags in this sourc
Discovery of high-frequency iron K lags in Ark 564 and Mrk 335
We use archival XMM-Newton observations of Ark 564 and Mrk 335 to calculate
the frequency dependent time-lags for these two well-studied sources. We
discover high-frequency Fe K lags in both sources, indicating that the red wing
of the line precedes the rest frame energy by roughly 100 s and 150 s for Ark
564 and Mrk 335, respectively. Including these two new sources, Fe K
reverberation lags have been observed in seven Seyfert galaxies. We examine the
low-frequency lag-energy spectrum, which is smooth, and shows no feature of
reverberation, as would be expected if the low-frequency lags were produced by
distant reflection off circumnuclear material. The clear differences in the low
and high frequency lag-energy spectra indicate that the lags are produced by
two distinct physical processes. Finally, we find that the amplitude of the Fe
K lag scales with black hole mass for these seven sources, consistent with a
relativistic reflection model where the lag is the light travel delay
associated with reflection of continuum photons off the inner disc.Comment: 10 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
X-ray reverberation around accreting black holes
Luminous accreting stellar mass and supermassive black holes produce
power-law continuum X-ray emission from a compact central corona. Reverberation
time lags occur due to light travel time-delays between changes in the direct
coronal emission and corresponding variations in its reflection from the
accretion flow. Reverberation is detectable using light curves made in
different X-ray energy bands, since the direct and reflected components have
different spectral shapes. Larger, lower frequency, lags are also seen and are
identified with propagation of fluctuations through the accretion flow and
associated corona. We review the evidence for X-ray reverberation in active
galactic nuclei and black hole X-ray binaries, showing how it can be best
measured and how it may be modelled. The timescales and energy-dependence of
the high frequency reverberation lags show that much of the signal is
originating from very close to the black hole in some objects, within a few
gravitational radii of the event horizon. We consider how these signals can be
studied in the future to carry out X-ray reverberation mapping of the regions
closest to black holes.Comment: 72 pages, 32 figures. Accepted for publication in The Astronomy and
Astrophysics Review. Corrected for mostly minor typos, but in particular
errors are corrected in the denominators of the covariance and rms spectrum
error equations (Eqn. 14 and 15
XMM-Newton Finds That SAX J1750.8-2900 May Harbor the Hottest, Most Luminous Known Neutron Star
We have performed the first sensitive X-ray observation of the low-mass X-ray
binary SAX J1750.8-2900 in quiescence with XMM-Newton. The spectrum was fit to
both a classical black body model, and a non-magnetized, pure hydrogen neutron
star atmosphere model. A power law component was added to these models, but we
found that it was not required by the fits. The distance to SAX J1750.8-2900 is
known to be D = 6.79 kpc from a previous analysis of photospheric radius
expansion bursts. This distance implies a bolometric luminosity (as given by
the NS atmosphere model) of (1.05 +/- 0.12) x 10^34 (D/6.79 kpc)^2 erg s^-1,
which is the highest known luminosity for a NS LMXB in quiescence. One simple
explanation for this surprising result could be that the crust and core of the
NS were not in thermal equilibrium during the observation. We argue that this
was likely not the case, and that the core temperature of the NS in SAX
J1750.8-2900 is unusually high
Relativistic Disk Reflection in the Neutron Star X-ray Binary XTE J1709-267 with NuSTAR
We perform the first reflection study of the soft X-ray transient and Type 1
burst source XTE J1709-267 using NuSTAR observations during its 2016 June
outburst. There was an increase in flux near the end of the observations, which
corresponds to an increase from 0.04 L to 0.06
L assuming a distance of 8.5 kpc. We have separately examined
spectra from the low and high flux intervals, which were soft and show evidence
of a broad Fe K line. Fits to these intervals with relativistic disk reflection
models have revealed an inner disk radius of (where
) for the low flux spectrum and
for the high flux spectrum at the 90\% confidence level. The disk is likely
truncated by a boundary layer surrounding the neutron star or the
magnetosphere. Based on the measured luminosity and using the accretion
efficiency for a disk around a neutron star, we estimate that the theoretically
expected size for the boundary layer would be from the
neutron star's surface, which can be increased by spin or viscosity effects.
Another plausible scenario is that the disk could be truncated by the
magnetosphere. We place a conservative upper limit on the strength of the
magnetic field at the poles, assuming and , of
G, though X-ray pulsations have not been detected
from this source.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ, 5 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. arXiv
admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1701.0177
Suzaku and BeppoSAX X-ray Spectra of the Persistently Accreting Neutron-Star Binary 4U 1705-44
We present an analysis of the broad-band spectra of 4U~1705--44 obtained with
{\it Suzaku} in 2006--2008 and by {\it BeppoSAX} in 2000. The source exhibits
two distinct states: the hard state shows emission from 1 to 150 keV, while the
soft state is mostly confined to be keV. We model soft-state continuum
spectra with two thermal components, one of which is a multicolor accretion
disk and the other is a single-temperature blackbody to describe the boundary
layer, with additional weak Comptonization represented by either a simple power
law or the SIMPL model by Steiner et al. The hard-state continuum spectra are
modeled by a single-temperature blackbody for the boundary layer plus strong
Comptonization, modeled by a cutoff power law. While we are unable to draw firm
conclusions about the physical properties of the disk in the hard state, the
accretion disk in the soft state appears to approximately follow . The deviation from , as expected from a constant inner
disk radius, might be caused by a luminosity-dependent spectral hardening
factor and/or real changes of the inner disk radius in some part of the soft
state. The boundary layer apparent emission area is roughly constant from the
hard to the soft states, with a value of about 1/11 of the neutron star
surface. The magnetic field on the surface of the NS in 4U~1705--44 is
estimated to be less than about G, assuming that the disk is
truncated by the ISCO or by the neutron star surface. Broad relativistic Fe
lines are detected in most spectra and are modeled with the diskline model. The
strength of the Fe lines is found to correlate well with the boundary layer
emission in the soft state. In the hard state, the Fe lines are probably due to
illumination of the accretion disk by the strong Comptonization emission.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa
X-ray Spectral and Variability Properties of Low-Mass AGN
We study the X-ray properties of a sample of 14 optically-selected low-mass
AGN whose masses lie within the range 1E5 -2E6 M(solar) with XMM-Newton. Only
six of these low-mass AGN have previously been studied with sufficient quality
X-ray data, thus, we more than double the number of low-mass AGN observed by
XMM-Newton with the addition of our sample. We analyze their X-ray spectral
properties and variability and compare the results to their more massive
counterparts. The presence of a soft X-ray excess is detectable in all five
objects which were not background dominated at 2-3 keV. Combined with previous
studies, this gives a total of 8 low-mass AGN with a soft excess. The low-mass
AGN exhibit rapid, short-term variability (hundreds to thousands of seconds) as
well as long-term variability (months to years). There is a well-known
anti-correlation between black hole mass and variability amplitude (normalized
excess variance). Comparing our sample of low-mass AGN with this relation we
find that all of our sample lie below an extrapolation of the linear relation.
Such a flattening of the relation at low masses (below about 1E6 M(solar)) is
expected if the variability in all AGN follows the same shape power spectrum
with a break frequency that is dependent on mass. Finally, we also found two
objects that show significant absorption in their X-ray spectrum, indicative of
type 2 objects, although they are classified as type 1 AGN based on optical
spectra.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, 7 tables, accepted for publication in MNRA
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