2025ApJ...978...75S -
Astrophys. J., 978, 75 (2025/January-1)
A Spectro-temporal View of Normal Branch Oscillations in Cygnus X-2 as Seen by NICER and NuSTAR.
SUDHA M., LUDLAM R.M., ALTAMIRANO D., CACKETT E.M. and HARE J.
Abstract (from CDS):
We report the spectro-temporal study of the neutron star low mass X-ray binary Cygnus X-2 using NICER and NuSTAR data while the source was in the normal branch (NB). We detect a normal branch oscillation (NBO) feature at ∼5.41 Hz that appears in the middle portion of the NB branch. We note that the NBO appeared only in the 0.5-3 keV energy range, with maximum strength in the 1-2 keV energy band, but was absent in the 3-10 keV energy band of NuSTAR and NICER data. The energy spectrum of the source exhibits an emission feature at ∼1 keV, previously identified as the Fe L transition in the outer region of the accretion disk. Upon considering both the Fe L and NBO features, we suggest that the originating location of the Fe L line and the NBOs may coincide and perhaps be due to the same underlying mechanism. Therefore, lags seen in the frequency-/energy-dependent lag spectra of Cygnus X-2 could be considered to be arising from a region of photoionized material far from the central source. We study the frequency and energy-dependent lag spectra of the source, which exhibited a few millisecond hard lag at the NBO frequency (12-15 ms) and a switch from hard to soft lags at 1 keV. The rms spectrum peaks at 1 keV, and the covariance spectrum clearly resembles a thermal spectrum. We discuss the spectro-temporal behavior of the NBO and attempt to constrain its location of origin.
Abstract Copyright:
© 2024. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.
Journal keyword(s):
Low-mass x-ray binary stars
Simbad objects:
8
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