SRG/ART-XC discovery of SRGA J204318.2+443815: towards the complete population of faint X-ray pulsars

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of a new faint, long-period X-ray pulsar in a Be binary system, highlighting the capability of the SRG observatory to identify hidden populations of such objects.

Contribution

The study presents the first detection and detailed characterization of a faint, long-period X-ray pulsar using SRG and follow-up observations, expanding knowledge of low luminosity pulsar populations.

Findings

Discovered a 742 s period X-ray pulsar in a Be binary system.

Identified spectral features indicating a Be-star companion.

Confirmed the source as a persistent low-luminosity X-ray pulsar.

Abstract

We report a discovery of a new long-period X-ray pulsar SRGA J204318.2+443815/SRGe J204319.0+443820 in the Be binary system. The source was found in the second all-sky survey by the Mikhail Pavlinsky telescope on board the SRG mission. The follow-up observations with XMM-Newton, NICER and NuSTAR observatories allowed us to discover a strong coherent signal in the source light curve with the period of $\sim742$ s. The pulsed fraction was found to depend on the energy increasing from $\sim20$% in soft X-rays to $>50$% at high energies, as it is typical for X-ray pulsars. The source demonstrate a quite hard spectrum with an exponential cutoff at high energies and bolometric luminosity of $L_X \simeq 4\times10^{35}$ erg/s. Dedicated optical and infrared observations with the RTT-150, NOT, Keck and Palomar telescopes revealed a number of emission lines (H$_{\alpha}$, HeI, Pashen and Braket series) with the strongly absorbed continuum. All of above suggests that SRGAJ204318.2+443815/ SRGeJ204319.0+443820 is a new persistent low luminosity X-ray pulsar in a distant binary system with a Be-star of the B0-B2e class. Thus the SRG observatory allow us to unveil the hidden population of faint persistent objects including the population of slowly rotating X-ray pulsars in Be systems.