Black hole X-ray binaries exhibit different spectral and timing properties in different accretion states. The X-ray outburst of a recently discovered and extraordinarily bright source, Swift J1727.8–1613, has enabled the first investigation of how the X-ray polarization properties of a source evolve with spectral state. The 2–8 keV polarization degree was previously measured by the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) to be ≈4% in the hard and hard intermediate states. Here we present new IXPE results taken in the soft state, with the X-ray flux dominated by the thermal accretion disk emission. We find that the polarization degree has dropped dramatically to ≲1%. This result indicates that the measured X-ray polarization is largely sensitive to the accretion state and the polarization fraction is significantly higher in the hard state when the X-ray emission is dominated by upscattered radiation in the X-ray corona. The combined polarization measurements in the soft and hard states disfavor a very high or low inclination of the system.
Dramatic Drop in the X-Ray Polarization of Swift J1727.8–1613 in the Soft Spectral State
- Creators
- Svoboda, Jiří
- Dovčiak, Michal
- Steiner, James F.
- Kaaret, Philip
- Podgorný, Jakub
- Poutanen, Juri
- Veledina, Alexandra
- Muleri, Fabio
- Taverna, Roberto
- Krawczynski, Henric
- Brigitte, Maïmouna
- Datta, Sudeb Ranjan
- Bianchi, Stefano
- Muñoz-Darias, Teo
- Negro, Michela
- Rodriguez Cavero, Nicole
- Castro Segura, Noel
- Bollemeijer, Niek
- García, Javier A.1
- Ingram, Adam
- Matt, Giorgio
- Nathan, Edward
- Weisskopf, Martin C.
- Altamirano, Diego
- Baldini, Luca
- Capitanio, Fiamma
- Egron, Elise
- Emami, Razieh
- Hu, Kun
- Marra, Lorenzo
- Mastroserio, Guglielmo
- Petrucci, Pierre-Olivier
- Ratheesh, Ajay
- Soffitta, Paolo
- Tombesi, Francesco
- Yang, Yi-Jung
- Zhang, Yuexin
Abstract
Copyright and License
© 2024. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
Acknowledgement
IXPE is a joint US and Italian mission. The US contribution is supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and led and managed by its Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), with industry partner Ball Aerospace (contract NNM15AA18C). The Italian contribution is supported by the Italian Space Agency (Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, ASI) through contract ASI-OHBI-2022-13-I.0, agreements ASI-INAF-2022-19-HH.0 and ASI-INFN-2017.13-H0, and its Space Science Data Center (SSDC) with agreements ASI-INAF-2022-14-HH.0 and ASI-INFN 2021-43-HH.0, as well as by the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) and the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) in Italy. This research used data products provided by the IXPE Team (MSFC, SSDC, INAF, and INFN) and distributed with additional software tools by the High-Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). This research has used the MAXI data provided by RIKEN, JAXA, and the MAXI team.
J.S., M.D., J.Pod., and S.R.D. thank GACR project 21-06825X for the support and institutional support from RVO:67985815. A.V. thanks the Academy of Finland grant 355672 for support. Nordita is supported in part by NordForsk. The work of F.M., R.T., G.M., L.M., and P.S. is partially supported by the PRIN grant 2022LWPEXW of the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR). M.B. acknowledges the support from GAUK project No. 102323. A.I. acknowledges support from the Royal Society. T.M.-D. acknowledges support by the Spanish Agencia estatal de investigación via PID2021-124879NB-I00. The French contribution is supported by the French Space Agency (Centre National d'Etude Spatiale, CNES) and by the High Energy National Programme (PNHE) of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). Y.Z. acknowledges support from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) Rubicon Fellowship No. 019.231EN.021. F.C. acknowledges the support of the INAF grant 1.05.23.05.06: "Spin and Geometry in accreting X-ray binaries: The first multi frequency spectro-polarimetric campaign." Finally, we thank the anonymous referee for the insightful comments that helped to improve the paper.
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Additional details
- ISSN
- 2041-8213
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- NNM15AA18C
- Agenzia Spaziale Italiana
- ASI-OHBI-2022-13-I.0
- Agenzia Spaziale Italiana
- ASI-INAF-2022-19-HH.0
- Agenzia Spaziale Italiana
- ASI-INFN-2017.13-H0
- Agenzia Spaziale Italiana
- ASI-INAF-2022-14-HH.0
- Agenzia Spaziale Italiana
- ASI-INFN 2021-43-HH.0
- National Institute for Astrophysics
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare
- Czech Science Foundation
- 21-06825X
- Czech Academy of Sciences
- RVO:67985815
- Research Council of Finland
- 355672
- NordForsk
- Ministero dell'Istruzione e del Merito
- 2022LWPEXW
- Charles University
- GAUK 102323
- Royal Society
- Agencia Estatal de Investigación
- PID2021-124879NB-I00
- Centre National d'Études Spatiales
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
- Dutch Research Council
- 019.231EN.021
- National Institute for Astrophysics
- 1.05.23.05.06
- Caltech groups
- Space Radiation Laboratory