SIMBAD references

2016ApJ...829..101M - Astrophys. J., 829, 101-101 (2016/October-1)

The gamma-ray source AGL J2241+4454 as the possible counterpart of MWC 656.

MUNAR-ADROVER P., SABATINI S., PIANO G., TAVANI M., NGUYEN L.H., LUCARELLI F., VERRECCHIA F. and PITTORI C.

Abstract (from CDS):

AGILE discovered the transient source AGL J2241+4454 in 2010, which triggered the study of the associated field allowing for the discovery of the first Be/black hole binary system: MWC 656. This binary was suggested to be the counterpart of AGL J2241+4454, but this association is still not robust. In this work we explore the archival AGILE and Fermi/Large Area Telescope (LAT) data to find more transient events compatible with AGL J2241+4454 and address the possibility to link them to the accretion/ejection processes of MWC 656. We found a total of nine other transient events with AGILE compatible with the position of AGL J2241+4454, besides the 2010 one. We folded these events with the period of the binary system and we could not associate the gamma-ray activity with any particular orbital phase. By stacking the 10 transient events we obtained a spectrum that extends between 100 MeV and 1 GeV, and we fitted it with a power law with a photon index Γ=2.3±0.2. We searched the Fermi/LAT data in order to complement the gamma-ray information provided by AGILE but no significant results arose. To investigate this apparent contradiction between these telescopes, we studied the exposure of the field of AGL J2241+4454 in both instruments, and found significant differences. In particular, AGILE exposed, for a longer time and at a lower off-axis angular distance, the field of AGL J2241+4454. This fact, together with the energy-dependent sensitivity of both instruments, and the soft spectrum found in the stacking analysis, might explain why AGILE observed the transient events not seen by Fermi/LAT.

Abstract Copyright: © 2016. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.

Journal keyword(s): binaries: general - gamma-rays: stars - stars: black holes - stars: emission-line, Be - stars: individual: MWC 656 - X-rays: binaries - X-rays: binaries

Simbad objects: 10

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