English

INTEGRAL/IBIS observations of a hard X-ray outburst in high mass X-ray binary 4U 2206+54

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2015-05-19 v1 Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

Abstract

U 2206+54 is a wind-fed high mass X-ray binary with a main-sequence donor star. The nature of its compact object was recently identified as a slow-pulsation magnetized neutron star. INTEGRAL/IBIS observations have a long-term hard X-ray monitoring of 4U 2206+54 and detected a hard X-ray outburst around 15 December 2005 combined with the RXTE/ASM data.The hard X-ray outburst had a double-flare feature with a duration of \sim 2 days. The first flare showed a fast rise and long time decaying light curve about 15 hours with a peak luminosity of 4×1036\sim 4\times 10^{36} erg s1^{-1} from 1.5 -- 12 keV and a hard spectrum (only significantly seen above 5 keV). The second one had the mean hard X-ray luminosity of 1.3×10361.3\times 10^{36} erg s1^{-1} from 20 -- 150 keV with a modulation period at 5550\sim 5550 s which is the pulse period of the neutron star in 4U 2206+54; its hard X-ray spectrum from 20 -- 300 keV can be fitted with a broken power-law model with the photon indexes Γ12.3, Γ23.3\Gamma_1 \sim 2.3,\ \Gamma_2 \sim 3.3, and the break energy is Eb31E_b \sim 31 keV or a bremsstrahlung model of kT23kT\sim 23 keV. We suggest that the hard X-ray flare could be induced by suddenly enhanced accretion dense materials from stellar winds hitting the polar cap region of the neutron star. This hard X-ray outburst may be a link to supergiant fast X-ray transients though 4U 2206+54 has a different type of companion.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1007.4373,
  title  = {INTEGRAL/IBIS observations of a hard X-ray outburst in high mass X-ray binary 4U 2206+54},
  author = {W. Wang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1007.4373},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

4 pages, 5 figures, accepted for the publication in Astron. Astrophys