A Possible 55-day X-ray Period of the Ultraluminous Accreting Pulsar M82 X-2

TL;DR

This paper reports a potential 55-day superorbital X-ray modulation in the ultraluminous pulsar M82 X-2, based on archival observations, which could reveal new insights into the system's long-term behavior.

Contribution

It presents the first possible detection of a 55-day superorbital period in M82 X-2 and re-evaluates previous periodicities, clarifying the system's variability.

Findings

Possible 55-day superorbital period detected in M82 X-2

62-day periodicity found to be unstable and not the orbital period

No periodicities detected in other nearby ultraluminous X-ray sources

Abstract

We report a possible detection of a 55-day X-ray modulation for the ultraluminous accreting pulsar M82 X-2 from archival Chandra observations. Because M82 X-2 is known to have a 2.5-day orbital period, if the 55-day period is real, it will be the superorbital period of the system. We also investigated variabilities of other three nearby ultraluminous X-ray sources in the central region of M82 with the Chandra data and did not find any evidence of periodicities. Furthermore, we re-examined the previously reported 62-day periodicity near the central region of M82 by performing a systematic timing study with all the archival Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer and Swift data. Using various dynamic timing analysis methods, we confirmed that the 62-day period is not stable, suggesting that it is not the orbital period of M82 X-1 in agreement with previous work.