NuSTAR and Swift observations of the fast rotating magnetized white dwarf AE Aquarii
Abstract
AE Aquarii is a cataclysmic variable with the fastest known rotating magnetized white dwarf (P_(spin) = 33.08 s). Compared to many intermediate polars, AE Aquarii shows a soft X-ray spectrum with a very low luminosity (L X ~ 10^(31) erg s^(–1)). We have analyzed overlapping observations of this system with the NuSTAR and the Swift X-ray observatories in 2012 September. We find the 0.5-30 keV spectra to be well fitted by either an optically thin thermal plasma model with three temperatures of 0.75^(+0.18)_(-0.45), 2.29^(+0.96)_(-0.82), and 9.33^(+6.07)_(-2.18) keV, or an optically thin thermal plasma model with two temperatures of 1.00^(+0.34)_(-0.23) and 4.64^(+1.58)_(-0.84) keV plus a power-law component with photon index of 2.50^(+0.17)_(-0.23). The pulse profile in the 3-20 keV band is broad and approximately sinusoidal, with a pulsed fraction of 16.6% ± 2.3%. We do not find any evidence for a previously reported sharp feature in the pulse profile.
Additional Information
© 2014 American Astronomical Society. Received 2013 October 31; accepted 2013 December 17; published 2014 January 17. This work was supported under NASA Contract No. NNG08FD60C, and made use of data from the NuSTAR mission, a project led by the California Institute of Technology, managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. We thank the NuSTAR Operations, Software and Calibration teams and the Swift Operations team for support with the execution and analysis of these observations. This research has made use of the NuSTAR Data Analysis Software (NuSTARDAS) jointly developed by the ASI Science Data Center (ASDC, Italy) and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech, USA) and the XRT Data Analysis Software (XRTDAS) developed under the responsibility of ASDC. T.K. was supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B) (No. 24740185). Facilities: NuSTAR, SwiftAttached Files
Published - 0004-637X_782_1_3.pdf
Submitted - 1312.5039v1.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 45004
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20140417-103033745
- NASA
- NNG08FD60C
- NASA/JPL/Caltech
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)
- 24740185
- Created
-
2014-04-17Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- NuSTAR, Space Radiation Laboratory
- Other Numbering System Name
- Space Radiation Laboratory
- Other Numbering System Identifier
- 2014-69