New insight into the hard X-ray emission influenced by the type I bursts observed by Insight-HXMT during the outburst of 4U 1636–536

¹ Key Laboratory of Particle Astrophysics, Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, PR China
e-mail: pengjq@ihep.ac.cn; szhang@ihep.ac.cn; chenyp@ihep.ac.cn
² University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, PR China
³ Institute für Astronomie und Astrophysik, Kepler Center for Astro and Particle Physics, Eberhard Karls, Universität, Sand 1, 72076 Tübingen, Germany
⁴ School of Physics and Astronomy, Sun Yat-Sen University, Zhuhai 519082, PR China
⁵ Yunnan Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650216, PR China
⁶ Key Laboratory for the Structure and Evolution Celestial Objects, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650216, PR China
⁷ Center for Astronomical Mega-Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100012, PR China
⁸ CAS Key Laboratory for Research in Galaxies and Cosmology, Department of Astronomy, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, PR China
⁹ School of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, PR China
¹⁰ Key Laboratory of Stars and Interstellar Medium, Xiangtan University, Xiangtan 411105, Hunan, PR China
¹¹ College of Science, China Three Gorges University, Yichang 443002, PR China
¹² Center for Astronomy and Space Sciences, China Three Gorges University, Yichang 443002, PR China

Received: 21 July 2023
Accepted: 29 January 2024

Abstract

Context. Thermonuclear bursts, also known as type I X-ray bursts, result from unstable nuclear burning of H/He accreted to the surface of neutron stars, lasting from tens to hundreds of seconds. Thermonuclear bursts have an important impact on accretion environments around the neutron stars, such as their disks and coronas, and are therefore a subject of extensive research. Thermonuclear bursts can be used as probes to gain a deeper understanding of the properties of their disks and coronas.

Aims. By analyzing the data from Insight-HXMT and NICER, we can determine the evolution of the significance of the hard shortage in 4U 1636–536 with its spectral state, as well as the evolution of the fraction of deficit with energy. Additionally, we investigate the possible geometry and evolution of the corona in 4U 1636–536 by combining our findings with the results of spectral analysis.

Methods. We extracted the light curves from the Insight-HXMT low-energy, medium-energy, and high-energy data and subtracted their pre-burst emission, which allowed us to estimate the significance of the hard shortages during the bursts. By fitting the spectra, the correlation between the persistent spectral parameters and the significance of the hard shortages could be established. The bursts were then grouped according to the spectral state in which they occurred, and the significance of the hard shortages was estimated. These in turn helped to investigate the evolution of the fraction of deficit with energy.

Results. We find that during the soft state the significance of possible hard X-ray shortage in bursts is almost zero. However, in the hard state, some bursts exhibit significant shortages (> 3σ), while others do not. We attempt to establish a correlation between the significance of the hard X-ray shortage and the spectral parameters, but the data quality and the limited number of bursts prevent us from finding a strong correlation. For bursts with insignificant shortages in the soft state, the fraction of the deficit remains small. However, in the hard state the fraction of deficit for all bursts increases with energy, regardless of the significance of the shortage of individual bursts. For bursts during the hard state, we investigated the evolution of the fraction of deficit during the bursts by stacking the peaks and decays of the bursts, and find that as the flux of the bursts decreases, the energy corresponding to the maximum of the fraction of deficit becomes progressively higher.

Conclusions. We explore the possible geometry and evolution of the corona suggested by the evolution of the fraction of deficit, which is obtained from the spectral and temporal analysis.