2022/01/18 by Ryan T. Urquhart, Ryan Urquhart, Roberto Soria +14 · 12 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Accretion (finance) #Amplitude #Astronomy #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Black hole (networking) #Galaxy #High-pressure geophysics and materials #Light curve #Luminosity #Neutron star #Oscillation (cell signaling) #Physics #Precession #Pulsar #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #X-ray binary #astro-ph.HE
paper · pdf · open access · doi:10.1093/mnras/stac195
published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 511(3), 4528-4550 (Oxford University Press) · 23 pages, 29 figures, 5 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRAS
arxiv created 2022/01/18 · openalex publication_date 2022/02/22 · arxiv updated 2022/03/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We have studied the unusual time variability of an ultraluminous X-ray source in M 101, 4XMM J140314.2+541806 (henceforth, J1403), using Chandra and XMM-Newton data. Over the last two decades, J1403 has shown short-duration outbursts with an X-ray luminosity ∼1-3 × 1039 erg s-1, and longer intervals at luminosities ∼0.5-1 × 1038 erg s-1. The bimodal behaviour and fast outburst evolution (sometimes only a few days) are more consistent with an accretor/propeller scenario for a neutron star than with the canonical outburst cycles of stellar-mass black holes. If this scenario is correct, the luminosities in the accretor and propeller states suggest a fast spin (P ≈ 5 ms) and a low surface magnetic field (B ∼ 1010 G), despite our identification of J1403 as a high-mass X-ray binary. The most striking property of J1403 is the presence of strong ∼600-s quasi periodic oscillations (QPOs), mostly around frequencies of ≈ 1.3-1.8 mHz, found at several epochs during the ultraluminous regime. We illustrate the properties of such QPOs, in particular their frequency and amplitude changes between and within observations, with a variety of techniques (Fast Fourier Transforms, Lomb-Scargle periodograms, weighted wavelet Z-transform analysis). The QPO frequency range <10 mHz is an almost unexplored regime in X-ray binaries and ultraluminous X-ray sources. We compare our findings with the (few) examples of very low frequency variability found in other accreting sources, and discuss possible explanations (Lense-Thirring precession of the inner flow or outflow; radiation pressure limit-cycle instability; marginally stable He burning on the neutron star surface).