Accretion of a clumped wind from a red supergiant donor on to a magnetar is suggested by the analysis of the XMM-Newton and NuSTAR observations of the X-ray binary 3A 1954+319
- 3A 1954+319 has been classified for a long time as a symbiotic X-ray binary, hosting a slowly rotating neutron star and an aged M red giant. Recently, this classification has been revised thanks to the discovery that the donor star is an M supergiant. This makes 3A 1954+319 a rare type of high-mass X-ray binary consisting of a neutron star and a red supergiant donor. In this paper, we analyse two archival and still unpublished XMM-Newton and NuSTAR observations of the source. We perform a detailed hardness ratio-resolved spectral analysis to search for spectral variability that could help investigating the structures of the inhomogeneous M supergiant wind from which the neutron star is accreting. We discuss our results in the context of wind-fed supergiant X-ray binaries and show that the newest findings on 3A 1954+319 reinforce the hypothesis that the neutron star in this system is endowed with a magnetar-like magnetic field strength (greater than or similar to 10(14) G).
Author details: | Enrico BozzoORCiD, Carlo FerrignoORCiD, Lidia M. OskinovaORCiDGND, Lorenzo Ducci |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab3688 |
ISSN: | 0035-8711 |
ISSN: | 1365-2966 |
Title of parent work (English): | Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society |
Publisher: | Oxford Univ. Press |
Place of publishing: | Oxford |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Date of first publication: | 2021/12/20 |
Publication year: | 2021 |
Release date: | 2024/05/08 |
Tag: | X-rays: binaries; X-rays: individual: 3A 1954+319; X-rays: stars; accretion; accretion discs; stars: massive; stars: neutron |
Volume: | 510 |
Issue: | 3 |
Number of pages: | 9 |
First page: | 4645 |
Last Page: | 4653 |
Organizational units: | Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Physik und Astronomie |
DDC classification: | 5 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik / 52 Astronomie / 520 Astronomie und zugeordnete Wissenschaften |
Peer review: | Referiert |