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RXTE PCA observations of SWIFT J1626.6-5156

ATel #679; C. B. Markwardt (U. Maryland & NASA/GSFC) & J. H. Swank (NASA/GSFC)
on 20 Dec 2005; 22:09 UT
Credential Certification: Craig B. Markwardt (craigm@lheamail.gsfc.nasa.gov)

Subjects: X-ray, Binary, Neutron Star, Transient, Pulsar

Referred to by ATel #: 687, 688, 713, 739, 962, 2036, 3300, 14457

RXTE observed the transient pulsar SWIFT J1626.6-5156 (Palmer et al., ATEL #678) on 2005 Dec 19 21:07 (UT) for 670 seconds and on 2005 Dec 20 02:56 for 3800 seconds.

The source had a mean flux of ~120 mCrab (2-10 keV). At the beginning of the second observation, the pulse peaks were seen to increase with time from about 130 to 200 mCrab over ten minutes, suggesting strong pulsed variability. In contrast, the non-pulsed emission stayed approximately constant.

The barycentered pulse period is 15.37682 +/- 0.00005, with both observations consistent with being coherent pulsations.

The spectrum is consistent with a power law (photon index 0.9) with high energy cut-off, where the cut-off is approximately 5 keV. An iron line is detected at 6.4 keV with an equivalent width of ~450 eV. The fluxes in the 2-10, 10-20 and 20-40 keV bands were 1.9, 1.4 and 0.8 in units of 1E-9 erg/cmE2/s. The column density was about 2E22 cmE-2 for this fit.

Additional RXTE observations are planned.