NuSTAR detection of a cyclotron line in the supergiant fast X-ray transient IGR J17544-2619

NuSTAR detection of a cyclotron line in the supergiant fast X-ray transient IGR J17544-2619

We present NuSTAR spectral and timing studies of the supergiant fast X-ray transient (SFXT) IGR J17544−2619. The spectrum is well described by an ~1 keV blackbody and a hard continuum component, as expected from an accreting X-ray pulsar. We detect a cyclotron line at 17 keV, confirming that the com...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Bhalerao, Varun, Romano, Patrizia, Tomsick, John, Natalucci, Lorenzo, Smith, David M., Bellm, Eric, Boggs, Steven E., Chakrabarty, Deepto, Christensen, Finn E., Craig, William W., Fuerst, Felix, Hailey, Charles J., Harrison, Fiona A., Krivonos, Roman A., Lu, Ting-Ni, Madsen, Kristin K., Stern, Daniel, Younes, George, Zhang, William
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: Oxford University Press 2015
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/98041
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8804-8946
Description
Summary:We present NuSTAR spectral and timing studies of the supergiant fast X-ray transient (SFXT) IGR J17544−2619. The spectrum is well described by an ~1 keV blackbody and a hard continuum component, as expected from an accreting X-ray pulsar. We detect a cyclotron line at 17 keV, confirming that the compact object in IGR J17544−2619 is indeed a neutron star. This is the first measurement of the magnetic field in an SFXT. The inferred magnetic field strength, B = (1.45 ± 0.03) × 10[superscript 12]G (1 + z) is typical of neutron stars in X-ray binaries, and rules out a magnetar nature for the compact object. We do not find any significant pulsations in the source on time-scales of 1–2000 s.

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