The X-Ray Polarimetry View of the Accreting Pulsar Cen X-3

Sergey S. Tsygankov , Victor Doroshenko , Juri Poutanen , Jeremy Heyl , Alexander A. Mushtukov , Ilaria Caiazzo , Alessandro Di Marco , Sofia V. Forsblom , Denis González-Caniulef , Moritz Klawin , Fabio La Monaca , Christian Malacaria , Herman L. Marshall , Fabio Muleri , Mason Ng , Valery F. Suleimanov , Rashid A. Sunyaev , Roberto Turolla , Iván Agudo , Lucio A. Antonelli , Matteo Bachetti , Luca Baldini , Wayne H. Baumgartner , Ronaldo Bellazzini , Stefano Bianchi , Stephen D. Bongiorno , Raffaella Bonino , Alessandro Brez , Niccolò Bucciantini , Fiamma Capitanio , Simone Castellano , Elisabetta Cavazzuti , Stefano Ciprini , Enrico Costa , Alessandra de Rosa , Ettore del Monte , Laura Di Gesu , Niccolò Di Lalla , Immacolata Donnarumma , Michal Dovčiak , Steven R. Ehlert , Teruaki Enoto , Yuri Evangelista , Sergio Fabiani , Riccardo Ferrazzoli , Javier A. Garcia , Shuichi Gunji , Kiyoshi Hayashida , Wataru Iwakiri , Svetlana G. Jorstad , Vladimir Karas , Takao Kitaguchi , Jeffery J. Kolodziejczak , Henric Krawczynski , Luca Latronico , Ioannis Liodakis , Simone Maldera , Alberto Manfreda , Frédéric Marin (1) , Andrea Marinucci , Alan P. Marscher , Giorgio Matt , Ikuyuki Mitsuishi , Tsunefumi Mizuno , Chi-Yung Ng , Stephen L. O'Dell , Nicola Omodei , Chiara Oppedisano , Alessandro Papitto , George G. Pavlov , Abel L. Peirson , Matteo Perri , Melissa Pesce-Rollins , Pierre-Olivier Petrucci (2) , Maura Pilia , Andrea Possenti , Simonetta Puccetti , Brian D. Ramsey , John Rankin , Ajay Ratheesh , Roger W. Romani , Carmelo Sgrò , Patrick Slane , Paolo Soffitta , Gloria Spandre , Toru Tamagawa , Fabrizio Tavecchio , Roberto Taverna , Yuzuru Tawara , Allyn F. Tennant , Nicholas E. Thomas , Francesco Tombesi , Alessio Trois , Jacco Vink , Martin C. Weisskopf , Kinwah Wu , Fei Xie , Silvia Zane

1 ObAS - Observatoire astronomique de Strasbourg
2 IPAG - Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble

The first X-ray pulsar, Cen X-3, was discovered 50 yr ago. Radiation from such objects is expected to be highly polarized due to birefringence of plasma and vacuum associated with propagation of photons in the presence of the strong magnetic field. Here we present results of the observations of Cen X-3 performed with the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer. The source exhibited significant flux variability and was observed in two states different by a factor of ~20 in flux. In the low-luminosity state, no significant polarization was found in either pulse phase-averaged (with a 3σ upper limit of 12%) or phase-resolved (the 3σ upper limits are 20%-30%) data. In the bright state, the polarization degree of 5.8% ± 0.3% and polarization angle of 49.°6 ± 1.°5 with a significance of about 20σ were measured from the spectropolarimetric analysis of the phase-averaged data. The phase-resolved analysis showed a significant anticorrelation between the flux and the polarization degree, as well as strong variations of the polarization angle. The fit with the rotating vector model indicates a position angle of the pulsar spin axis of about 49° and a magnetic obliquity of 17°. The detected relatively low polarization can be explained if the upper layers of the neutron star surface are overheated by the accreted matter and the conversion of the polarization modes occurs within the transition region between the upper hot layer and a cooler underlying atmosphere. A fraction of polarization signal can also be produced by reflection of radiation from the neutron star surface and the accretion curtain.

Keywords: Neutron stars; Magnetic fields; X-ray binary stars; Accretion; Pulsars; Polarimetry; Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Domains: Sciences of the Universe [physics]; Astrophysics [astro-ph]

Sergey S. Tsygankov, Victor Doroshenko, Juri Poutanen, Jeremy Heyl, Alexander A. Mushtukov, et al.. The X-Ray Polarimetry View of the Accreting Pulsar Cen X-3. The Astrophysical journal letters, 2022, 941, ⟨10.3847/2041-8213/aca486⟩. ⟨insu-03926755⟩