SAASST News

Thursday, 04 February 2021 12:49

Exploring IGRJ18027-2016 using Archival Observations from XMM-Newton Telescope.

IGRJ18027-2016 is not a geographical location nor a phone number. It is the name of a supergiant high mass X-ray binary system. An X-ray binary system is composed of a star and a compact object. The compact object can be either a white dwarf, neutron star, or a black hole, and the companion star can be of different masses. This system consists of a neutron star and a supergiant star.

 

XMM-Newton (an X-ray telescope) recorded 6 different observations of IGRJ18027-2016. The table below shows the different observation IDs with the different periods, where the period indicates how fast the neutron star is rotating.

 

 

The period of the system is important for obtaining the correct folded light curve. Where a wrong period may result in missing or underestimated peeks.

 

 

A folded light curve for hard x-ray (2-10 keV) can be seen at the top of figure 2, while the middle graph shows the folded light curve for the soft x-ray (0.2-1keV). The Error bound between the two light curves is seen at the bottom of the graph.