A Comprehensive X-ray Report on AT2019wey

Author/Creator ORCID

Date

2020-11-30

Department

Program

Citation of Original Publication

Yao, Yuhan; Kulkarni, S. R.; Gendreau, K. C.; Jaisawal, Gaurava K.; Enoto, Teruaki; Grefenstette, Brian W.; Marshall, Herman L.; Garcia, Javier A.; Ludlam, R. M.; Pike, Sean N.; Ng, Mason; Zhang, Liang; Altamirano, Diego; Jaodand, Amruta; Cenko, S. Bradley; Remillard, Ronald A.; Steiner, James F.; Negoro, Hitoshi; Brightman, Murray; Lien, Amy; Wolff, Michael T.; Ray, Paul S.; Mukai, Koji; Wadiasingh, Zorawar; Arzoumanian, Zaven; Kawai, Nobuyki; Mihara, Tatehiro; Strohmayer, Tod E.; A Comprehensive X-ray Report on AT2019wey; High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (2020); https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.00160

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Subjects

Abstract

The Galactic low-mass X-ray binary AT2019wey (ATLAS19bcxp, SRGA J043520.9+552226, SRGE J043523.3+552234, ZTF19acwrvzk) was discovered as a new optical transient in Dec 2019, and independently as an X-ray transient in Mar 2020. In this paper, we present comprehensive NICER, NuSTAR, Chandra, Swift, and MAXI observations of AT2019wey from ~1 year prior to the discovery to the end of September 2020. AT2019wey appeared as a ~1 mCrab source and stayed at this flux density for several months, displaying a hard X-ray spectrum that can be modeled as a power-law with photon index Gamma~1.8. In June 2020 it started to brighten, and reached ~20 mCrab in ~2 months. The inclination of this system can be constrained to i<~30 deg by modeling the reflection spectrum. Starting from late-August (~59082 MJD), AT2019wey entered into the hard-intermediate state (HIMS), and underwent a few week-long timescale outbursts, where the brightening in soft X-rays is correlated with the enhancement of a thermal component. Low-frequency quasi-periodic oscillation (QPO) was observed in the HIMS. We detect no pulsation and in timing analysis of the NICER and NuSTAR data. The X-ray states and power spectra of AT2019wey are discussed against the landscape of low-mass X-ray binaries.