Photospheric Radius Expansion and a Double-peaked Type-I X-Ray Burst from GRS 1741.9-2853
Pike SN, Harrison FA, Tomsick JA, Bachetti M, Buisson DJK, Garcia JA, Jiang J, Ludlam RM, Madsen KK (2021)
Publication Type: Journal article
Publication year: 2021
Journal
Book Volume: 918
Journal Issue: 1
Abstract
We present an analysis of two type-I X-ray bursts observed by NuSTAR originating from the very faint transient neutron star (NS) low-mass X-ray binary GRS 1741.9-2853 during a period of outburst in 2020 May. We show that the persistent emission can be modeled as an absorbed, Comptonized blackbody in addition to Fe K alpha emission, which can be attributed to relativistic disk reflection. We measure a persistent bolometric, unabsorbed luminosity of L-bol=7.03(-0.05)(+0.04) x 10(36) erg s(-1) , assuming a distance of 7 kpc, corresponding to an Eddington ratio of 4.5%. This persistent luminosity combined with light-curve analysis leads us to infer that the bursts were the result of pure He burning rather than mixed H/He burning. Time-resolved spectroscopy reveals that the bolometric flux of the first burst exhibits a double-peaked structure, placing the source within a small population of accreting NSs that exhibit multiple-peaked type-I X-ray bursts. We find that the second, brighter burst shows evidence for photospheric radius expansion (PRE) and that at its peak, this PRE event had an unabsorbed bolometric flux of F-peak = 2.94(-0.26)(+0.28) x 10(-8) erg cm(-2)s(-1) d = 9.0 +/- 0.5 kpc, assuming that this corresponds to the Eddington limit for pure He burning on the surface of a canonical NS. Additionally, we performed a detailed timing analysis that failed to find evidence for quasi-periodic oscillations or burst oscillations, and we place an upper limit of 16% on the rms variability around 589 Hz, the frequency at which oscillations have previously been reported.
Involved external institutions
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
United States (USA) (US)
University of California, Berkeley
United States (USA) (US)
National Institute for Astrophysics / Istituto Nazionale Astrofisica (INAF)
Italy (IT)
University of Southampton
United Kingdom (GB)
Tsinghua University
China (CN)
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
United States (USA) (US)
United States (USA) (US)
University of California, Berkeley
United States (USA) (US)
National Institute for Astrophysics / Istituto Nazionale Astrofisica (INAF)
Italy (IT)
University of Southampton
United Kingdom (GB)
Tsinghua University
China (CN)
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
United States (USA) (US)
How to cite
APA:
Pike, S.N., Harrison, F.A., Tomsick, J.A., Bachetti, M., Buisson, D.J.K., Garcia, J.A.,... Madsen, K.K. (2021). Photospheric Radius Expansion and a Double-peaked Type-I X-Ray Burst from GRS 1741.9-2853. Astrophysical Journal, 918(1). https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac0ef9
MLA:
Pike, Sean N., et al. "Photospheric Radius Expansion and a Double-peaked Type-I X-Ray Burst from GRS 1741.9-2853." Astrophysical Journal 918.1 (2021).
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