Bibcode
Homan, J.; Fridriksson, Joel K.; Wijnands, Rudy; Cackett, Edward M.; Degenaar, Nathalie; Linares, M.; Lin, Dacheng; Remillard, Ronald A.
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 795, Issue 2, article id. 131, 12 pp. (2014).
Advertised on:
11
2014
Journal
Citations
51
Refereed citations
48
Description
We present Chandra, XMM-Newton, and Swift observations of the quiescent
neutron star in the transient low-mass X-ray binary MAXI J0556-332.
Observations of the source made during outburst (with the Rossi X-ray
Timing Explorer) reveal tracks in its X-ray color-color and
hardness-intensity diagrams that closely resemble those of the
neutron-star Z sources, suggesting that MAXI J0556-332 had near- or
super-Eddington luminosities for a large part of its ~16 month outburst.
A comparison of these diagrams with those of other Z sources suggests a
source distance of 46 ± 15 kpc. Fits to the quiescent spectra of
MAXI J0556-332 with a neutron-star atmosphere model (with or without a
power-law component) result in distance estimates of 45 ± 3 kpc,
for a neutron-star radius of 10 km and a mass of 1.4 M
☉. The spectra show the effective surface temperature
of the neutron star decreasing monotonically over the first ~500 days of
quiescence, except for two observations that were likely affected by
enhanced low-level accretion. The temperatures we obtain for the fits
that include a power law (kT_eff∞ = 184-308 eV) are
much higher than those seen for any other neutron star heated by
accretion, while the inferred cooling (e-folding) timescale (~200 days)
is similar to other sources. Fits without a power law yield higher
temperatures (kT_eff∞ = 190-336 eV) and a shorter
e-folding time (~160 days). Our results suggest that the heating of the
neutron-star crust in MAXI J0556-332 was considerably more efficient
than for other systems, possibly indicating additional or more efficient
shallow heat sources in its crust.
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