A Deep Pulse Search in 11 Low Mass X-Ray Binaries

A. Patruno, K. Wette, C. Messenger

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    13 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    We present a systematic coherent X-ray pulsation search in 11 low mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs). We select a relatively broad variety of LMXBs, including persistent and transient sources, spanning orbital periods between 0.3 and 17 hr. We use about 3.6 Ms of data collected by the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer and XMM-Newton and apply a semi-coherent search strategy to look for weak and persistent pulses in a wide spin frequency range. We find no evidence for X-ray pulsations in these systems and consequently set upper limits on the pulsed sinusoidal semi-amplitude below 1.6% for ten outbursting/persistent LMXBs and 6% for a quiescent system; the upper limits are further refined, by searching a narrower parameter space around the outliers, down to 0.14%-0.78% and 2.9%, respectively. These results suggest that weak pulsations might not form in (most) non pulsating LMXBs.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number112
    JournalAstrophysical Journal
    Volume859
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Jun 2018

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'A Deep Pulse Search in 11 Low Mass X-Ray Binaries'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this