ASCA Discovery of a Be X-Ray Pulsar in the SMC: AX J0051–733

ASCA observed the central region of the Small Magellanic Cloud, and found a hard X-ray source, AX J0051–733, at the position of the ROSAT source RX J0050.8–7316, which has an optical counterpart of a Be star. Coherent X-ray pulsations of 323.1 ± 0.3 s were discovered from AX J0051–733. The pulse pro...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPublications of the Astronomical Society of Japan Vol. 51; no. 6; pp. L15 - L19
Main Authors Imanishi, Kensuke, Yokogawa, Jun, Tsujimoto, Masahiro, Koyama, Katsuji
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published 25.12.1999
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Summary:ASCA observed the central region of the Small Magellanic Cloud, and found a hard X-ray source, AX J0051–733, at the position of the ROSAT source RX J0050.8–7316, which has an optical counterpart of a Be star. Coherent X-ray pulsations of 323.1 ± 0.3 s were discovered from AX J0051–733. The pulse profile shows several sub-peaks in the soft (0.7–2.0 keV) X-ray band, but becomes nearly sinusoidal in the harder (2.0–7.0 keV) X-ray band. The X-ray spectrum was found to be hard, and is well fitted by a power-law model with a photon index of 1.0 ± 0.4. The long-term flux history was examined with the archival data of Einstein observatory and ROSAT; a flux variability with a factor ≳10 was found.
ISSN:0004-6264
2053-051X
DOI:10.1093/pasj/51.6.L15