Suzaku Discovery of Hard X-Ray Pulsations from a Rotating Magnetized White Dwarf, AEAquarii

Abstract

A fast rotating magnetized white dwarf, AEAquarii, was observed with Suzaku, in 2005 October–November and 2006 October with exposures of 53.1 and 42.4 ks, respectively. In addition to clear spin modulation in the 0.5–10 keV band of the XIS data at the barycentric period of 33.0769$\pm$0.0001 s, the 10–30 keV HXD data in the second half of the 2005 observation also showed statistically significant periodic signals at a consistent period. On that occasion, the spin-folded HXD light curve exhibited two sharp spikes separated by $\sim$0.2 cycles in phase, in contrast to approximately sinusoidal profiles observed at energies below $\sim$4 keV. The folded 4–10 keV XIS light curves are understood to be a superposition of those two types of pulse profiles. The phase-averaged 1.5–10 keV spectra can be reproduced by two thermal components with temperatures of $2.90_{-0.16}^{+0.20}$keV and 0.53${\;}_{-0.13}^{+0.14}$keV, but the 12–25 keV HXD data show a significant excess above the extrapolated model. This excess can be explained by either a power-law model with a photon index of $1.12_{-0.62}^{+0.63}$ or a third thermal component with a temperature of 54${\;}_{-47}^{+26}$keV. At a distance of 102 pc, the 4–30 keV luminosities of the thermal and the additional components become $1.7_{-0.6}^{+1.3}$ and 5.3${\;}_{-0.3}^{+15.3}$$\times10^{29}$ergs$^{-1}$, respectively. The latter corresponds to 0.09% of the spin-down energy of the object. Possible emission mechanisms of the hard pulsations are discussed, including non-thermal ones, in particular.

Discovery of X-ray pulsations from a massive star

“…It is illuminating to compare x 1 CMa with the degenerate X-ray pulsars, namely white dwarfs and neutron stars [63][64][65] . Some neutron star X-ray pulsars have a thermal component in their X-ray spectra, which is explained as originating from their atmosphere 66 .…”

Transient Sources in Astrophysics: From Radio to Gamma-Rays

“…This places the white dwarf in AE Aquarii in the same category as the rotational power pulsars, which shows a similar ratio of X-ray luminosity to spin-down power (e.g. [73,74]). From a model independent energetics point it can be shown that the fast rotation period, combined with an inferred magnetic field strength of B * ∼ 10 6 G based on circular polarization measurements (e.g.…”

AE Aquarii: A Short Review

“…This implies that the low mass accretion and rapid rotation of the highly magnetized white dwarf may provide a mechanism for pulsar-like particle acceleration and nonthermal emission. Recent results from Suzaku X-ray satellite (Terada et al 2008) showed a non-thermal spectrum at energies x ≥ 10 keV. It has been showed recently (e.g. )…”