XMM-Newton and Suzaku Spectroscopic Studies of Unidentified X-ray Sources towards the Galactic Bulge: 1RXS J180556.1$-$343818 and 1RXS J173905.2$-$392615

TL;DR

This study used XMM-Newton and Suzaku to analyze two unidentified X-ray sources near the Galactic bulge, revealing their likely Galactic disk origin and characterizing their spectral properties.

Contribution

First broad-band spectral analysis of these sources, identifying their nature and possible optical counterparts, and clarifying their Galactic location.

Findings

1RXS J180556.1-343818 is likely an active G giant.

1RXS J173905.2-392615 is a dim X-ray source with a thermal plasma spectrum.

Both sources are probably part of the Galactic disk, not the bulge.

Abstract

With the XMM-Newton and Suzaku observations, for the first time, we acquired broad-band spectra of two unidentified X-ray sources towards the Galactic bulge: 1RXS J180556.1$-$343818 and 1RXS J173905.2$-$392615. The 1RXS J180556.1$-$343818 spectrum in the $0.3$-$7$ keV band was explained by X-ray emission originated from an optically-thin thermal plasma with temperatures of $0.5$ and $1.7$ keV. The estimated absorption column density of $N_{\rm H} \sim 4 \times 10^{20}$ cm$^{-2}$ was significantly smaller than the Galactic HI column density towards the source. A candidate of its optical counterpart, HD 321269, was found within $4''$. In terms of the X-ray properties and the positional coincidence, it is quite conceivable that 1RXS J180556.1$-$343818 is an active G giant. We also found a dim X-ray source that was positionally consistent with 1RXS J173905.2$-$392615. Assuming that the X-ray spectrum can be reproduced with an absorbed optically-thin thermal plasma model with $kT = 1.6$ keV, the X-ray flux in the $0.5$-$8$ keV band was $8.7 \times 10^{-14}$ erg s$^{-1}$ cm$^{-2}$, fainter by a factor of $\sim 7$ than that of 1RXS J173905.2$-$392615 during the ROSAT observation. The follow-up observations we conducted revealed that these two sources would belong to the Galactic disk, rather than the Galactic bulge.