The First NuSTAR Observation of 4U 1538–522: Updated Orbital Ephemeris and a Strengthened Case for an Evolving Cyclotron Line Energy

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https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ab03d3

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https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ab03d3
 http://hdl.handle.net/11603/29418

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https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4656-6881

Date

2019-03-05

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journal articles
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Citation of Original Publication

Hemphill, Paul B., Richard E. Rothschild, Diana M. Cheatham, Felix Fürst, Peter Kretschmar, Matthias Kühnel, Katja Pottschmidt, Rüdiger Staubert, Jörn Wilms, and Michael T. Wolff. “The First NuSTAR Observation of 4U 1538–522: Updated Orbital Ephemeris and a Strengthened Case for an Evolving Cyclotron Line Energy.” The Astrophysical Journal 873, no. 1 (March 2019): 62. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ab03d3.

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This work was written as part of one of the author's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.
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Abstract

We have performed a comprehensive spectral and timing analysis of the first NuSTAR observation of the high-mass X-ray binary 4U 1538−522. The observation covers the X-ray eclipse of the source, plus the eclipse ingress and egress. We use the new measurement of the mid-eclipse time to update the orbital parameters of the system and find marginally significant evolution in the orbital period, with Pₒᵣb / Pₒᵣb= (-0.95 ± 0.37)* 10⁻⁶ yr⁻¹. The cyclotron line energy is found to be approximately 1.2 keV higher than RXTE measurements from 1997 to 2003, in line with the increased energy observed by Suzaku in 2012 and strengthening the case for secular evolution of 4U 1538−522's CRSF. We additionally characterize the behavior of the iron fluorescence and emission lines and line-of-sight absorption as the source moves into and out of eclipse.