SIMBAD references

2026A&A...706A.175D - Astronomy and Astrophysics, volume 706A175 (2026/2-1)

Long-term evolution of cyclotron resonant scattering features in the accreting pulsar Vela X-1: A pulse-to-pulse approach.

DU Y.-J., WANG P.-J., DUCCI L., JI L., KONG L.-D., BU Q.-C., MEHROTRA C. and SANTANGELO A.

Abstract (from CDS):

We investigated the long-term evolution of the cyclotron line energy, as well as the relationship between cyclotron line energy and luminosity in the high-mass X-ray binary Vela X-1, based on archival Swift/BAT monitoring from 2005 to 2024 and pulse-to-pulse analysis of nine NuSTAR observations from 2012 to 2024. Our results provide the first confirmation that the long-term decay of the harmonic line energy (E_cyc, H_) in Vela X-1 has ended. We further report the first detection of a transient increase in E_cyc, H_ between 2020 and 2023, which suggests a sudden and significant change in the magnetic field configuration or accretion geometry. In addition, E_cyc, H_ shows slightly lower values at low luminosities and tends to flatten at higher luminosities, in the range of (0.13 - 1.21)×1037 erg s–1. The fundamental line energy (E_cyc, F_) exhibits no significant variation with time or luminosity, remaining stable at approximately 25 keV.

Abstract Copyright: © The Authors 2026

Journal keyword(s): accretion, accretion disks - pulsars: general

VizieR on-line data: <Available at CDS (J/A+A/706/A175): tablea1.dat-tablea7.dat>

Simbad objects: 7

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