Production of Millisecond Dips in Sco X-1 Count Rates by Dead Time Effects
Abstract
Chang et al. (2006) reported millisecond duration dips in the X-ray intensity of Sco X-1 and attributed them to occultations of the source by small trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). We have found multiple lines of evidence that these dips are not astronomical in origin, but rather the result of high-energy charged particle events in the RXTE PCA detectors. Our analysis of the RXTE data indicates that at most 10% of the observed dips in Sco X-1 could be due to occultations by TNOs, and, furthermore, we find no positive or supporting evidence for any of them being due to TNOs. We therefore believe that it is a mistake to conclude that any TNOs have been detected via occultation of Sco X-1.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0710.0837,
title = {Production of Millisecond Dips in Sco X-1 Count Rates by Dead Time Effects},
author = {T. A. Jones and A. M. Levine and E. H. Morgan and S. Rappaport},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0710.0837},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
Submitted to ApJ; uses emulateapj.cls, 8 pages with 8 figures