968 research outputs found
A transient high-coherence oscillation in 4U 1820-30
We re-analyzed two Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer archival observations of the
atoll source 4U 1820-30 in order to investigate the detailed time-frequency
properties of the source during the intervals when a ~7 Hz QPO was detected by
Wijnands et al. (1999, ApJ, 512, L39). We find that in both observations, in
addition to a QPO signal lasting a couple of minutes as previously reported,
there is a much narrower transient oscillation with a life time of only a few
seconds. Within this time, the oscillation is consistent with being coherent.
Its integrated fractional rms is around 10% and its frequency 7.3 Hz and 5.7 Hz
in the two observations. We discuss the possible association of this QPO with
other oscillations known both in Neutron-Star and Black-Hole systems,
concentrating on the similarities with the narrow 5-7 Hz oscillations observed
at high flux in Black-Hole Candidates.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in A&A. FIgure 1 is
reduced in resolution, full-resolution version of this text available at
http://www.merate.mi.astro.it/~belloni/ms0335.ps.g
An observational review of accretion-driven millisecond X-ray pulsars
I present an observational review of the five currently known
accretion-driven millisecond X-ray pulsars. A prominent place in this review is
given to SAX J1808.4-3658; it was the first such system discovered and
currently four outbursts have been observed from this source. This makes SAX
J1808.4-3658 the best studied example of the group. Its most recent outburst in
October 2002 is of particular interest because of the discovery of two
simultaneous kilohertz quasi-periodic oscillations and nearly coherent
oscillations during type-I X-ray bursts. This is the first time that such
phenomena are observed in a system for which the neutron star spin frequency is
exactly known. The other four systems were discovered within the last two years
and only limited results have been published. Since new exiting results are to
be expected in the future for all five sources, this review will only represent
a snap-shot of the current observational knowledge of accretion-driven
millisecond X-ray pulsars. A more extended and fully up-to-date review can be
found at http://zon.wins.uva.nl/~rudy/admxp/.Comment: To appear in the Proceedings of the Symposium "The Restless
High-Energy Universe", 5-8 May 2003, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, E.P.J. van
den Heuvel, J.J.M. in 't Zand, and R.A.M.J. Wijers Eds. A more extended and
always fully-up-to-date version of this review can be found at
http://zon.wins.uva.nl/~rudy/admxp
A continuous Flaring- to Normal-branch transition in Sco X-1
We report the first resolved rapid transition from a Flaring Branch
Oscillation to a Normal Branch Oscillation in the RXTE data of the Z source Sco
X-1. The transition took place on a time scale of ~100 seconds and was clearly
associated to the Normal Branch-Flaring Branch vertex in the color-color
diagram. We discuss the results in the context of the possible association of
the Normal Branch Oscillation with other oscillations known both in
Neutron-Star and Black-Hole systems, concentrating on the similarities with the
narrow 4-6 Hz oscillations observed at high flux in Black-Hole Candidates.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy &
Astrophysic
The Swift X-ray monitoring campaign of the center of the Milky Way
In 2006 February, shortly after its launch, Swift began monitoring the center
of the Milky Way with the onboard X-Ray Telescope using short 1-ks exposures
performed every 1-4 days. Between 2006 and 2014, over 1200 observations have
been obtained, amounting to ~1.2 Ms of exposure time. This has yielded a wealth
of information about the long-term X-ray behavior of the supermassive black
hole Sgr A*, and numerous transient X-ray binaries that are located within the
25'x25' region covered by the campaign. In this review we highlight the
discoveries made during these first nine years, which includes 1) the detection
of seven bright X-ray flares from Sgr A*, 2) the discovery of the magnetar SGR
J1745-29, 3) the first systematic analysis of the outburst light curves and
energetics of the peculiar class of very-faint X-ray binaries, 4) the discovery
of three new transient X-ray sources, 5) exposing low-level accretion in
otherwise bright X-ray binaries, and 6) the identification of a candidate X-ray
binary/millisecond radio pulsar transitional object. We also reflect on future
science to be done by continuing this Swift's legacy campaign of the Galactic
center, which includes high-cadence monitoring of how the interaction between
the gaseous object `G2' and Sgr A* plays out in the future.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, 4 tables. Invited review to appear in Elsevier's
Journal of High Energy Astrophysics dedicated issue "Swift: 10 years of
discovery
Standalone, battery powered radiation monitors for accelerator electronics
A technical description of the design of a new type of radiation monitors is given. The key point in the design is the low power consumption inferior to 17 mW in radiation sensing mode and inferior to 0.3 mW in standby mode. The radiation monitors can operate without any external power or signal cabling and measure and store radiation data for a maximum period of 800 days. To read the radiation data, a standard PC can be connected via a USB interface to the device at any time. Only a few seconds are required to read out a single monitor. This makes it possible to survey a large network of monitoring devices in a short period of time, for example during a stop of the accelerator
The Galactic center X-ray transients AX J1745.6-2901 and GRS 1741-2853
AX J1745.6-2901 and GRS 1741-2853 are two transient neutron star low-mass
X-ray binaries that are located within ~10' from the Galactic center.
Multi-year monitoring observations with the Swift/XRT has exposed several
accretion outbursts from these objects. We report on their updated X-ray light
curves and renewed activity that occurred in 2010-2013.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figure, 1 table. To appear in conference proceedings of
IAU symposium 303 "The Galactic Center: Feeding and Feedback in a Normal
Galactic Nucleus
A four-year baseline Swift study of enigmatic X-ray transients located near the Galactic center
We report on continued monitoring observations of the Galactic center carried
out by the X-ray telescope aboard the Swift satellite in 2008 and 2009. This
campaign revealed activity of the five known X-ray transients AX J1745.6-2901,
CXOGC J174535.5-290124, GRS 1741-2853, XMM J174457-2850.3 and CXOGC
J174538.0-290022. All these sources are known to undergo very faint X-ray
outbursts with 2-10 keV peak luminosities of Lx,peak~1E34-1E36 erg/s, although
the two confirmed neutron star low-mass X-ray binaries AX J1745.6-2901 and GRS
1741-2853 can also become brighter (Lx,peak~1E36-1E37 erg/s). We discuss the
observed long-term lightcurves and X-ray spectra of these five enigmatic
transients. In 2008, AX J1745.6-2901 returned to quiescence following an
unusually long accretion outburst of more than 1.5 years. GRS 1741-2853 was
active in 2009 and displayed the brightest outburst ever recorded for this
source, reaching up to a 2-10 keV luminosity of Lx~1E37 (D/7.2 kpc)^2 erg/s.
This system appears to undergo recurrent accretion outbursts approximately
every 2 years. Furthermore, we find that the unclassified transient XMM
J174457-2850.3 becomes bright only during short episodes (days) and is often
found active in between quiescence (Lx~1E32 erg/s) and its maximum outburst
luminosity of Lx~1E36 erg/s. CXOGC J174535.5-290124 and CXOGC J174538.0-290022,
as well as three other very-faint X-ray transients that were detected by Swift
monitoring observations in 2006, have very low time-averaged mass-accretion
rates of ~< 2E-12 Msun/yr. Despite having obtained two years of new data in
2008 and 2009, no new X-ray transients were detected.Comment: Minor textual revisions according to referee report, accepted for
publication in A&
Swift J1357.2-0933: the faintest black hole?
Swift J1357.2-0933 is the first confirmed very faint black hole X-ray
transient and has a short estimated orbital period of 2.8 hr. We observed Swift
J1357.2-0933 for ~50 ks with XMM-Newton in 2013 July during its quiescent
state. The source is clearly detected at a 0.5-10 keV unabsorbed flux of
~3x10^-15 erg cm-2 s-1. If the source is located at a distance of 1.5 kpc (as
suggested in the literature), this would imply a luminosity of ~8x10^29 erg
s-1, making it the faintest detected quiescent black hole LMXB. This would also
imply that there is no indication of a reversal in the quiescence X-ray
luminosity versus orbital period diagram down to 2.8 hr, as has been predicted
theoretically and recently supported by the detection of the 2.4 hr orbital
period black hole MAXI J1659-152 at a 0.5-10 keV X-ray luminosity of ~ 1.2 x
10^31 erg s-1. However, there is considerable uncertainty in the distance of
Swift J1357.2-0933 and it may be as distant as 6 kpc. In this case, its
quiescent luminosity would be Lx ~ 1.3 x 10^31 erg s-1, i.e., similar to MAXI
J1659-152 and hence it would support the existence of such a bifurcation
period. We also detected the source in optical at r' ~22.3 mag with the
Liverpool telescope, simultaneously to our X-ray observation. The X-ray/optical
luminosity ratio of Swift J1357.2-0933 agrees with the expected value for a
black hole at this range of quiescent X-ray luminosities.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRA
Efficient interface conditions for the semi-vectorial finite-difference beam propagation method
Efficient interface conditions (EICs) are derived for the propagation equation using the slowly varying envelope approximation for the dominant electric field component. At the interface between two different media, the two lateral second derivatives in the discretized propagation equation are adapted such that the discretized modal field equation is correct up to second order in the lateral grid spacing. Since the error term is then of the order of the lateral grid spacing, our EICs are first-order EICs. These interface conditions are compared with well-known zero-order EICs derived by Stern and Kim and Ramaswamy. It is shown that the first-order EICs yield faster convergence to the exact effective index value as the lateral grid spacing is decreased than do the zero-order EICs. It turns out that our EICs are very much like those derived by Vassallo. Using essentially the same method, he derived EICs of second and first order for the field component respectively parallel and perpendicular, to the interface. Hence the accuracy of his EICs is one order higher for the field component parallel to the interface, although it introduces an extra asymmetry in the propagation matrix
The new X-ray transient SAX J1711.6-3808: decoupling between its 3-20 keV luminosity and its state transitions
We present a study of the correlated spectral and timing behavior of the new
X-ray transient SAX J1711.6-3808 during its 2001 outburst using data obtained
with the RXTE. We also investigate the correlations between those source
properties and the 3-20 keV X-ray luminosity. The behavior of the source during
the observations can be divided into two distinct state types. During the hard
state, the energy spectra are relatively hard and can be described by only a
power-law component, and the characteristic frequencies (i.e., the frequency of
the 1-7 Hz QPOs observed for the first time in this source) in the power
spectra are low. However, during the ``soft'' state, the spectra are
considerably softer (in addition to the power-law component, a soft component
is necessary to fit the spectra) and the frequencies are the highest observed.
Remarkably, this distinction into two separate states cannot be extrapolated to
also include the 3-20 keV X-ray luminosity. Except for one observation, this
luminosity steadily decreased but the hard state was observed both at the
highest and lowest observed luminosities. In contrast, the soft state occurred
only at intermediate luminosities. This clearly demonstrates that the state
behavior of SAX J1711.6-3808 is decoupled from its X-ray luminosity and that if
the X-ray luminosity traces the accretion rate in SAX J1711.6-3808, then the
state transitions are not good accretion rate indicators, or vice versa. The
data of SAX J1711.6-3808 does not allow us to conclusively determine its exact
nature. The source resembles both neutron star and black hole systems when they
have low luminosities. We discuss our results with respect to the correlated
timing and spectral behavior observed in other LMXBs and the implications of
our results on the modeling of the outburst light curves of X-ray transients.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Main Journal, 13 September 200
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