Strong outburst activity of the X-ray pulsar X Persei during 2001-2011

TL;DR

This study analyzes a decade of X-ray observations of X Persei, revealing multiple outbursts, spectral features including cyclotron lines, and significant pulse period changes, with no correlation to optical variability.

Contribution

It provides the first detection of a cyclotron absorption line and hard X-ray emission up to 160 keV in X Persei, and documents unprecedented pulse period variations during outbursts.

Findings

Multiple outbursts increased luminosity by ~5 times

Detection of cyclotron absorption line in the spectrum

Significant pulse period changes from spin-down to spin-up

Abstract

We present results of a comprehensive analysis of the X-ray pulsar X Persei over the period 1996 to 2011, encompassing the quite low state and subsequent strong outburst activity. Using data from the RXTE and Swift observatories we detected several consecutive outbursts, during which the source luminosity increased by a factor of ~5 up to L_x~1.2x10^{35} erg/s. Previously the source was observed in a high state only once. The source spectrum in a standard energy band (4-25 keV) is independent of the flux change and can be described by a model that includes both thermal and non-thermal components. With the help of the INTEGRAL observatory data we registered the highly significant cyclotron absorption line in the source spectrum and, for the first time, significantly detected a hard X-ray emission from the pulsar up to ~160 keV. We also report drastic changes of the pulse period during the outburst activity: a long episode of spin-down was changed to spin-up with a rate of Pdot/P = -(3-5)x10^{-4} yr^{-1}, that is several times higher than previous rates of spin-up and spin-down. To search for a correlation between the X-ray and optical lightcurves we took data from the AAVSO International Database. No significant correlation between optical and X-ray fluxes at any time lag from dozens of days to years was found.