National conference on REcent Trends in the study of Compact Objects (RETCO-V): Theory and Observation

Study of High-Mass X-Ray Binary Pulsar SMC X-2 during the 2015 Outburst

Apr 4, 2023, 2:50 PM

15m

Auditorium (Kodaikanal Solar Observatory)

Neutron Stars Neutron Stars

Speaker

Kinjal Roy (Raman Research Institute)

Description

SMC X-2 is one of the high-mass X-ray binary (HMXB) pulsar in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). After a long interval of 15 years, the source was observed in its third outburst in September 2015. The source reached a very high X-ray luminosity of ~5 × 10^38 erg s-1 at the peak of the outburst. The luminosity of the source slowly decayed over the course of a month. We will present results from analysing three XMM-Newton observations of SMC X-2. The bright outburst allowed us to perform a detailed spectral and temporal study of the data. The neutron star showed clear pulsation with a characteristic spin period of P_𝑠𝑝𝑖𝑛 ~2.37 seconds. The spectra were primarily modelled using a very hard powerlaw with a high-energy cutoff and a thermal component to model the soft excess. The powerlaw component became relatively soft with the progression of the outburst. Emission lines from Fe K𝛼 and highly ionized N and O were observed in all three observations. We will discuss our results' implications and the pulsar's emission properties during the outburst.