The X-Ray Polarimetry View of the Accreting Pulsar Cen X-3

Tsygankov, Sergey S. and Doroshenko, Victor and Poutanen, Juri and Heyl, Jeremy and Mushtukov, Alexander A. and Caiazzo, Ilaria and Di Marco, Alessandro and Forsblom, Sofia V. and González-Caniulef, Denis and Klawin, Moritz and La Monaca, Fabio and Malacaria, Christian and Marshall, Herman L. and Muleri, Fabio and Ng, Mason and Suleimanov, Valery F. and Sunyaev, Rashid A. and Turolla, Roberto and Agudo, Iván and Antonelli, Lucio A. and Bachetti, Matteo and Baldini, Luca and Baumgartner, Wayne H. and Bellazzini, Ronaldo and Bianchi, Stefano and Bongiorno, Stephen D. and Bonino, Raffaella and Brez, Alessandro and Bucciantini, Niccolò and Capitanio, Fiamma and Castellano, Simone and Cavazzuti, Elisabetta and Ciprini, Stefano and Costa, Enrico and Rosa, Alessandra De and Del Monte, Ettore and Gesu, Laura Di and Lalla, Niccolò Di and Donnarumma, Immacolata and Dovčiak, Michal and Ehlert, Steven R. and Enoto, Teruaki and Evangelista, Yuri and Fabiani, Sergio and Ferrazzoli, Riccardo and Garcia, Javier A. and Gunji, Shuichi and Hayashida, Kiyoshi and Iwakiri, Wataru and Jorstad, Svetlana G. and Karas, Vladimir and Kitaguchi, Takao and Kolodziejczak, Jeffery J. and Krawczynski, Henric and Latronico, Luca and Liodakis, Ioannis and Maldera, Simone and Manfreda, Alberto and Marin, Frédéric and Marinucci, Andrea and Marscher, Alan P. and Matt, Giorgio and Mitsuishi, Ikuyuki and Mizuno, Tsunefumi and Ng, Chi-Yung and O’Dell, Stephen L. and Omodei, Nicola and Oppedisano, Chiara and Papitto, Alessandro and Pavlov, George G. and Peirson, Abel L. and Perri, Matteo and Pesce-Rollins, Melissa and Petrucci, Pierre-Olivier and Pilia, Maura and Possenti, Andrea and Puccetti, Simonetta and Ramsey, Brian D. and Rankin, John and Ratheesh, Ajay and Romani, Roger W. and Sgrò, Carmelo and Slane, Patrick and Soffitta, Paolo and Spandre, Gloria and Tamagawa, Toru and Tavecchio, Fabrizio and Taverna, Roberto and Tawara, Yuzuru and Tennant, Allyn F. and Thomas, Nicholas E. and Tombesi, Francesco and Trois, Alessio and Vink, Jacco and Weisskopf, Martin C. and Wu, Kinwah and Xie, Fei and Zane, Silvia (2022) The X-Ray Polarimetry View of the Accreting Pulsar Cen X-3. The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 941 (1). L14. ISSN 2041-8205

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Abstract

The first X-ray pulsar, Cen X-3, was discovered 50 yr ago. Radiation from such objects is expected to be highly polarized due to birefringence of plasma and vacuum associated with propagation of photons in the presence of the strong magnetic field. Here we present results of the observations of Cen X-3 performed with the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer. The source exhibited significant flux variability and was observed in two states different by a factor of ∼20 in flux. In the low-luminosity state, no significant polarization was found in either pulse phase-averaged (with a 3σ upper limit of 12%) or phase-resolved (the 3σ upper limits are 20%–30%) data. In the bright state, the polarization degree of 5.8% ± 0.3% and polarization angle of 49fdg6 ± 1fdg5 with a significance of about 20σ were measured from the spectropolarimetric analysis of the phase-averaged data. The phase-resolved analysis showed a significant anticorrelation between the flux and the polarization degree, as well as strong variations of the polarization angle. The fit with the rotating vector model indicates a position angle of the pulsar spin axis of about 49° and a magnetic obliquity of 17°. The detected relatively low polarization can be explained if the upper layers of the neutron star surface are overheated by the accreted matter and the conversion of the polarization modes occurs within the transition region between the upper hot layer and a cooler underlying atmosphere. A fraction of polarization signal can also be produced by reflection of radiation from the neutron star surface and the accretion curtain.

Item Type: Article
Subjects: Bengali Archive > Physics and Astronomy
Depositing User: Unnamed user with email support@bengaliarchive.com
Date Deposited: 24 Apr 2023 06:35
Last Modified: 24 Sep 2024 11:29
URI: http://science.archiveopenbook.com/id/eprint/878

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