Article Dans Une Revue Astronomy & Astrophysics - A&A Année : 2005

Unveiling the nature of the high energy source IGR J19140+0951

J. Rodriguez
D. C. Hannikainen
  • Fonction : Auteur
V. Beckmann
S. E. Shaw
  • Fonction : Auteur
J. Schultz
  • Fonction : Auteur

Résumé

We report on high energy observations of IGR J19140+0951 performed with RXTE on three occasions in 2002, 2003 and 2004, and INTEGRAL during a very well sampled and unprecedented high energy coverage of this source from early-March to mid-May 2003. Our analysis shows that IGR J19140+0951 spends most of its time in a very low luminosity state, probably corresponding to the state observed with RXTE, and characterised by thermal Comptonisation. In some occasions we observe variations of the luminosity by a factor of about 10 during which the spectrum can show evidence for a thermal component, besides thermal Comptonisation by a hotter plasma than during the low luminosity state. The spectral parameters obtained from the spectral fits to the INTEGRAL and RXTE data strongly suggest that IGR J19140+0951 hosts a neutron star rather than a black hole. Very importantly, we observe variations of the absorption column density (with a value as high as ~1023 cm-2). Our spectral analysis also reveals a bright iron line detected with both RXTE/PCA and INTEGRAL/JEM-X, at different levels of luminosity. We discuss these results and the behaviour of IGR J19140+0951, and show, by comparison with other well known systems (Vela X-1, GX 301-2, 4U 2206+54), that IGR J19140+0951 is most probably a High Mass X-ray Binary.

Dates et versions

hal-00398120 , version 1 (24-06-2009)

Identifiants

Citer

J. Rodriguez, C. Cabanac, D. C. Hannikainen, V. Beckmann, S. E. Shaw, et al.. Unveiling the nature of the high energy source IGR J19140+0951. Astronomy & Astrophysics - A&A, 2005, 432, pp.235-247. ⟨10.1051/0004-6361:20041854⟩. ⟨hal-00398120⟩
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