Spectral Changes in the Hyperluminous Pulsar in NGC 5907 as a Function of Super-Orbital Phase

TL;DR

This study analyzes multi-epoch X-ray spectra of the ULX in NGC 5907, revealing a flatter-than-standard accretion disk temperature profile and spectral changes linked to the super-orbital phase, consistent with neutron star precession.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed spectral analysis across multiple epochs of this ULX, linking spectral variations to super-orbital phase and neutron star precession.

Findings

Flatter temperature gradient than standard thin disk.

Spectral similarity at phases 0.3-0.4 despite flux variation.

Steeper temperature profile observed at phase 0.

Abstract

We present broad-band, multi-epoch X-ray spectroscopy of the pulsating ultra-luminous X-ray source (ULX) in NGC 5907. Simultaneous XMM-Newton and NuSTAR data from 2014 are best described by a multi-color black-body model with a temperature gradient as a function of accretion disk radius significantly flatter than expected for a standard thin accretion disk (T(r) ~ r^{-p}, with p=0.608^{+0.014}_{-0.012}). Additionally, we detect a hard power-law tail at energies above 10 keV, which we interpret as being due to Comptonization. We compare this observation to archival XMM-Newton, Chandra, and NuSTAR data from 2003, 2012, and 2013, and investigate possible spectral changes as a function of phase over the 78d super-orbital period of this source. We find that observations taken around phases 0.3-0.4 show very similar temperature profiles, even though the observed flux varies significantly, while one observation taken around phase 0 has a significantly steeper profile. We discuss these findings in light of the recent discovery that the compact object is a neutron star and show that precession of the accretion disk or the neutron star can self-consistently explain most observed phenomena.