New measurements of the cyclotron line energy in Cen X-3
Abstract
We report results from the analysis of data from two observations of the accreting binary X-ray pulsar Cen X-3 carried out with the broad-band X-ray observatories Suzaku and NuSTAR. The pulse profile is dominated by a broad single peak and show some energy dependence with two additional weak pulse peaks at energies below 15 and 25 keV, respectively. The broad-band X-ray spectrum for 0.8-60.0 keV for Suzaku and 3.0-60.0 keV for NuSTAR is fitted well with high-energy cut-off power-law model along with soft-excess, multiple iron emission lines and a cyclotron absorption. The cyclotron line energy is found to be $30.29^{+0.68}_{-0.61}$ and $29.22^{+0.28}_{-0.27}$ keV, respectively, in the Suzaku and NuSTAR spectra. We make a comparison of these two measurements with four previous measurements of Cyclotron Resonant Scattering Feature (CRSF) in Cen X-3 obtained with Ginga, BeppoSAX, and RXTE. We find no evidence for a dependence of the CRSF on luminosity. Except for one CRSF measurement with BeppoSAX , the remaining measurements are consistent with a CRSF energy in the range of 29.5-30.0 keV over a luminosity range of 1.1-5.4 × 1037 erg s-1 different from several other sources that show considerable CRSF variation in the same luminosity range.
- Publication:
-
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Pub Date:
- January 2021
- DOI:
- 10.1093/mnras/staa3477
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2011.05534
- Bibcode:
- 2021MNRAS.500.3454T
- Keywords:
-
- stars: neutron;
- pulsars: general;
- X-rays: binaries;
- X-rays: individual: Cen X-3;
- Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
- E-Print:
- 8 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS