The Chandra Dust-scattering Halo of Galactic Center Transient Swift J174540.7–290015
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Corrales_2017_ApJ_839_76.pdf
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Author(s)
Corrales, L. R.
Mon, B.
Haggard, D.
Garmire, G.
Degenaar, N.
Reynolds, M.
Baganoff, Frederick K
Date Issued
April 2017
Journal
The Astrophysical Journal
Publisher
IOP Publishing
Citation
Corrales, L. R., B. Mon, D. Haggard, F. K. Baganoff, G. Garmire, N. Degenaar, and M. Reynolds. “TheChandraDust-Scattering Halo of Galactic Center Transient Swift J174540.7–290015.” The Astrophysical Journal 839, no. 2 (April 17, 2017): 76. © 2017 The American Astronomical Society
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Final published version
Abstract
We report the detection of a dust-scattering halo around a recently discovered X-ray transient, Swift J174540.7-290015, which in early 2016 February underwent one of the brightest outbursts (F X ≈ 5 × 10[superscript -10] erg cm[superscript -2] s[superscript -1] ) observed from a compact object in the Galactic Center field. We analyze four Chandra images that were taken as follow-up observations to Swift discoveries of new Galactic Center transients. After adjusting our spectral extraction for the effects of detector pile-up, we construct a point-spread function for each observation an d compare it to the GC field before the outburst. We find residual surface brightness around Swift J174540.7-290015, which has a shape and temporal evolution consistent with the behavior expected from X-rays scattered by foreground dust. We examine the spectral properties of the source, which shows evidence that the object transitioned from a soft to hard spectral state as it faded below L X ∼ 10[superscript 36 ]erg s[superscript -1]. This behavior is consistent with the hypothesis that the object is a low-mass X-ray binary in the Galactic Center.
MIT Department
MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aa68dd
