2016 Outburst of H 1743–322: XMM-Newton and NuSTAR View

Abstract

We report the detection of a type C quasi-periodic oscillation (QPO) along with an upper harmonic in the commensurate ratio of 1:2 in two observations of the low-mass black hole transient H 1743–322 jointly observed by XMM-Newton and NuSTAR during the 2016 outburst. We find that the QPO and the upper harmonic exhibit shifts in their centroid frequencies in the second observation with respect to the first one. The hardness intensity diagram implies that in contrast to the 2008 and 2014 failed outbursts, the 2016 outburst was a successful one. We also detect the presence of a broad iron Kα line at ∼6.5 keV and a reflection hump in the energy range 15–30 keV in both of the observations. Along with the shape of the power density spectra, the nature of the characteristic frequencies and the fractional rms amplitude of the timing features imply that the source stayed in the low/hard state during these observations. Moreover, the photon index and other spectral parameters also indicate the low/hard state behavior of the source. Unlike the soft lag detected in this source during the 2008 and 2014 failed outbursts, we observe hard time lags of 0.40 ± 0.15 s and 0.32 ± 0.07 s in the 0.07–0.4 Hz frequency range in the two observations during the 2016 outburst. The correlation between the photon index and the centroid frequency of the QPO is consistent with the previous results. Furthermore, the high value of the Comptonized fraction and the weak thermal component indicate that the QPO is being modulated by the Comptonization process.

AstroSat Observation of 2016 Outburst of H 1743-322

“…The best fit model to the SXT and LAXPC20 spectral data is shown in Figure 8, whereas all the best fit model parameters from the broadband X-Ray spectral fitting are listed in Table 2. Unlike the XMM-Newton and NuSTAR observations of the same outburst of this source (see Chand et al 2020), we could not detect the presence of iron emission line from the five days earlier observation by AstroSat. As seen from Table 2, the hydrogen column density is found to be 1.94±0.07.…”

“…Moreover, the energy independent nature of the QPO and the upper harmonic indicates that the source was observed in the LHS during the outburst rise period with the luminosity in the X-ray regime capable enough to drive the transition of the source from the hard to soft state (Stiele & Yu 2016). Similar kind of energy independent nature of type C QPOs along with upper harmonic was reported by Chand et al (2020) for the same outburst. However, the centroid frequency of the QPO and its upper harmonic as found by Chand et al (2020) with the simultaneous XMM-Newton and NuSTAR observations are shifted to higher frequency side with respect to this particular five days earlier AstroSat observation by ∼ 0.4 Hz and ∼ 0.8 Hz, respectively.…”

“…This observation was taken five days earlier than the simultaneous XMM-Newton and NuSTAR ones during the outburst rise phase of the source (see Figure 1). As similar to the study of the 2016 outburst of this source by Chand et al (2020) using the above said simultaneous XMM-Newton and NuSTAR observations, QPO along with its upper harmonic in the commensurate ratio of 1 : 2 are detected in both the 3 − 15 keV and 15 − 30 keV bands of the AstroSat observation. For the first time, the LAXPC data onboard AstroSat allows us to investigate the properties of PDS of H 1743-322 above 30 keV band.…”

“…A soft X-ray lag of ∼ 60 ms, arising most probably due to thermal reverberation, was also detected by De Marco & Ponti (2016) in the XMM-Newton observations of both the 2014 and 2008 failed outbursts. Furthermore, Chand et al (2020) analyzed the two consecutive simultaneous XMM-Newton and NuSTAR observations of the 2016 outburst of H 1743-322. Unlike the 2008 and 2014 failed outbursts, they found the outburst in the 2016 to be a successful one using the HID derived with the Swift/XRT monitoring of the same outburst.…”

AstroSat view of the newly discovered X-ray transient MAXI~J1803--298 in the Hard-intermediate state

“…Apart from this, You, Bursa & Życki (2018) performed the simulation of the fractional rms amplitudes of the type-C QPOs using the Lense-Thirring precession model and suggested that the flattening above ∼ 10 keV is caused by the effect of high orbital inclination angle. Moreover, a flat and decreasing nature in the fractional rms variability with energy (inverted correlation) of the type-C QPOs is observed in the LHS of some of the BHXRBs (Rodriguez et al 2004;Gierliński & Zdziarski 2005;Sobolewska & Życki 2006;Li et al 2013a,b;Chand et al 2020). A few more studies on the energy dependent fractional rms variability above 30 keV have been performed for the BHXRBs GRS 1915+105 (Tomsick & Karret 2001), MAXI J1535-571 (Huang et al 2018) and MAXI J1820+070 (Ma et al 2020), which also indicates the geometric origin of the type-C QPOs.…”