6533b829fe1ef96bd128a517
RESEARCH PRODUCT
BeppoSAX serendipitous discovery of the X-ray pulsar SAX J1802.7-2017
Giuseppa AugelloLuciano BurderiR. IariaN. R. RobbaLuigi StellaG. LavagettoT. Di SalvoT. Di Salvosubject
PhysicsSemi-major axisAstrophysics (astro-ph)FluxFOS: Physical sciencesAstronomy and AstrophysicsAstrophysicsAstrophysicsOrbital periodPulse periodSettore FIS/05 - Astronomia E AstrofisicaPulsarSpace and Planetary ScienceHigh massStars: Pulsars: General Stars: Pulsars: Individual: Alphanumeric: SAX J1802.7-2017 Stars: Magnetic Fields Stars: Neutron X-Rays: BinariesX-ray pulsardescription
We report on the serendipitous discovery of a new X-ray source, SAX J1802.7-2017, ~22' away from the bright X-ray source GX 9+1, during a BeppoSAX observation of the latter source on 2001 September 16-20. SAX J1802.7-2017 remained undetected in the first 50 ks of observation; the source count rate in the following ~300 ks ranged between 0.04 c/s and 0.28 c/s, corresponding to an averaged 0.1-10 keV flux of 3.6 10^{-11} ergs cm^{-2} s^{-1}. We performed a timing analysis and found that SAX J1802.7-2017 has a pulse period of 139.612 s, a projected semimajor axis of a_x sin i ~ 70 lt-s, an orbital period of ~4.6 days, and a mass function f(M) ~ 17 Msun. The new source is thus an accreting X-ray pulsar in a (possibly eclipsing) high mass X-ray binary. The source was not detected by previous X-ray astronomy satellites, indicating that it is likely a transient system.
| year | journal | country | edition | language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003-01-01 |