A&A 494, 417-428 (2009)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:200810773
J. Rodriguez1 - J. A. Tomsick2 - S. Chaty1
1 - Laboratoire AIM, CEA/DSM - CNRS - Université Paris Diderot, IRFU/SAp, Centre de Saclay, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
2 - Space Sciences Laboratory, 7 Gauss Way, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-7450, USA
Received 8 August 2008 / Accepted 25 November 2008
Abstract
Context. The positional accuracy of the IBIS telescope on-board INTEGRAL, albeit unprecedented in the >20 keV range, is still not good enough to identify many hard X-ray sources discovered by INTEGRAL. This indeed prevents counterparts from being found at other wavelengths, which is the only way to unveil the true nature of these sources.
Aims. We continue the work of trying to reveal the nature of these hard X-ray sources. This is done by analysing X-ray data collected via focusing X-ray telescopes, with the primary goal of discovering soft X-ray counterparts of the INTEGRAL sources to provide an accurate X-ray position. With a few arcsec accuracy, we can identify counterparts at infrared and optical wavelengths.
Methods. We analysed data from observations of 17 INTEGRAL sources made with the Swift satellite. The X-ray images obtained by the X-ray Telescope instrument allowed us to refine the position of the hard X-ray sources to an accuracy of a few arcsec. We then browsed the online catalogues (e.g., NED, SIMBAD, 2MASS, 2MASX, USNO) to search for counterparts at other wavelengths. We also made use of the X-ray spectral parameters to further distinguish between the various possibilities.
Results. For 13 sources, we find the X-ray counterpart without any ambiguity. For these, we provide the position with arcsec accuracy, identify possible infrared and optical counterparts (when found), give the magnitudes in those bands and in the optical and UV as seen with the SwiftUVOT telescope when observations are available. We confirm the previously suggested associations and source types for IGR J03532-6829, J05346-5759, J10101-5654, J13000+2529, J13020-6359, J15479-4529, J18214-1318, and J23206+6431. We identify IGR J09025-6814 as an AGN for the first time, and we suggest that it may be a Seyfert 2. We suggest that IGR J05319-6601, J16287-5021, J17353-3539, and J17476-2253 are X-ray binaries, with J05319-6601 located in the LMC and the other three possibly being HMXBs in our Galaxy. For IGR J15161-3827 and J20286+2544, we find several possible X-ray counterparts in the IBIS error region, and we discuss which, if any, are the likely counterparts. Both are likely AGNs, although the latter could be a blend of two AGNs. For IGR J03184-0014 and J19267+1325, we find X-ray sources slightly outside the IBIS error circle. In the former, we do not favour an association of the Swift and INTEGRAL source, while it is very likely that IGR J19267+1325 and the Swift source are the same.
Key words: astrometry - binaries: close - galaxies: Seyfert - X-rays: binaries - X-rays: galaxies
Since its launch, the INTErnational Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL) has
detected about 500 sources as reported in a recent version of its source catalogue
(Bodaghee et al. 2007; Bird et al. 2007). A large number of the sources had either not been well-studied
or had not been detected prior to INTEGRAL. In this paper, we refer to them as
``IGRs''. Although
arcmin accuracy
is achieved for source positions with IBIS/ISGRI (Lebrun et al. 2003), a level that is
unprecedented in the >20 keV range, this is not sufficient to unveil counterparts
at other wavelengths (optical, infrared (IR), and radio), which is the best way to
reveal the true nature of the IGRs.
In a recent paper, Bodaghee et al. (2007) collected known parameters (e.g., the
absorption column density, ,
the pulse period for Galactic sources with X-ray
pulsations, the redshift for AGN, etc.) of all sources detected by INTEGRAL during
the first four years of activity. Their catalogue,
however, contains a large number of IGRs whose high-energy position is accurate
at just the arcmin level, which therefore prevents their true nature from being
known. In some cases, a tentative identification is given, mainly when an AGN is
found within the INTEGRAL/ISGRI error circle, but this is far from being secure, as
other possible counterparts usually lie in the few arcmin ISGRI error regions.
Table 1: Journal of the Swift observations analysed in this paper.
In this paper, we continue our work of identifying the unknown IGRs
that we started soon after the discovery of the first IGRs. A first step
is to provide an arcsec position with soft X-ray telescopes such as
XMM-Newton, Chandra
(e.g., Rodriguez et al. 2003,2006; Tomsick et al. 2006,2008a), and also
Swift (Rodriguez et al. 2008, hereafter paper 1). We then search for
counterparts at a position consistent with the refined X-ray position of
a given source. In the case of HMXBs, we also have follow-up
programmes from ground-based facilities that permit us to further understand
the nature of a large number of systems (Chaty et al. 2008; Rahoui et al. 2008). In
paper 1, we focused on sources that were easily detected with Swift/XRT
(Gehrels et al. 2004; Burrows et al. 2005), i.e., sources that were bright enough to be
detected during single pointings lasting a few ks. In this paper, we report
on the analysis of Swift observations (XRT imaging and spectral analysis
and UVOT imaging) of seventeen IGRs that either lacked precise arcsec X-ray positions or
whose Chandra refined X-ray position was very recently published by
us (Tomsick et al. 2008b,a). We also present the identification of IR and optical counterparts obtained from online catalogues such as SIMBAD, the United States Naval Observatory (USNO),
the 2 Micron All Sky Survey point source and extended source
catalogues
(2MASS and 2MASX,
Skrutskie et al. 2006), and the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database
(NED
).
It should be noted that although the presence of a bright Swift
source within a given INTEGRAL error circle renders very likely the
association between the two sources, there is a slight probability that
the two sources are not associated. This is, in particular, exemplified by
the few cases where several Swift sources are found within the INTEGRAL
error circle. Note that this remark is also true for the association between
the Swift sources and the proposed counterpart at other wavelengths. We cannot
give a general statement about this issue, that would hold for all cases, as there
is a wide range of association probabilities from possible associations to
nearly certain associations. For all sources, we discuss the likelihood of association
between the INTEGRAL, Swift, and counterparts at other wavelengths.
Dubious cases (as, e.g., multiple possible counterparts) are discussed in more detail.
We start by introducing the Swift observations and briefly presenting the data reduction techniques in Sect. 2. Then, in Sect. 3, we describe the results for each source (position, counterparts, and spectral properties) and discuss their possible nature. We conclude the paper by summarising the results in Sect. 4.
Among all the Swift pointed observations of IGRs, we mainly restricted our
analysis to sources whose fine position and/or Swift observations were not
published anywhere else.
We used only the pointings during which the XRT instrument was in photon counting
mode since this is the only mode that provides a fine position. We also included in our study
sources for which a possible identification had been given, e.g.,
based on the presence of an AGN in the IBIS error region in existing
catalogues (see, e.g., Bodaghee et al. 2007). The observing log for our sample
of seventeen sources is reported in Table 1.
We reduced the Swift data with the HEASoft V6.5
software package and the calibration files issued on 2008 May 1 and 2008 June
25 for the UVOT and XRT instruments, respectively. The reduction steps are
identical to those presented in paper 1, and follow the standard steps
described in the XRT users guide and UVOT software guides.
More specifically, we ran the xrtpipeline tool with standard screening
criteria to produce level 2 (i.e., cleaned) event files from the level 1 data
products. The positions of the sources were obtained with xrtcentroid.
We co-added all individual pointings of a given source with xselect,
before estimating the source position from the resulting mosaic. We extracted
spectra and light curves with xselect from a circular region with a radius
of 20 pixels centred on the best position, while we obtained the background
products from a source-free circular region with a radius of 40 pixels (see
also paper 1). Due to the presence of columns of dead pixels in the XRT, we
produced ``true'' exposure maps to further correct the ancillary response
files (see also paper 1). We rebinned the spectra to have at least 20 counts
per channel which allows for
-minimization in the fitting with
XSPEC 11.3.2ag. When this criterion was not achievable, the Cash
statistic (hereafter C-statistic, Cash 1976) was used instead.
When available, we analysed the UVOT level 2 data obtained from
the Swift data archive. We first corrected the aspect for each individual
UVOT exposure with the uvotskycorr tool, calculating the aspect correction
via comparison to the USNO-B1.0
catalogue (Monet et al. 2003).
Then, we summed the aspect-corrected individual exposures with uvotimsum,
and performed the UVOT photometry and astrometry with the uvotdetect tool.
The refined X-ray positions of the sources detected by Swift are reported in
Table 2. For each source, we searched the 2MASS, 2MASX
and the USNO-B1.0 online catalogues for the presence of infrared
and/or optical counterparts within the Swift/XRT error circle.
Infrared counterparts that are newly identified from this search are reported
in Table 3. The typical positional accuracy for
the 2MASS sources is 0.5
(Skrutskie et al. 2006), while that of the USNO-B1.0
sources is typically 0.2
(Monet et al. 2003). The magnitudes and UV
positions of the optical and UV counterparts are reported in Table 4. The USNO-B1.0 photometric accuracy is typically 0.3 mag (Monet et al. 2003).
We fitted the source spectra
with a simple model of an absorbed power law. This provided an acceptable
representation of the spectra in the large majority of the cases. The spectral parameters we
obtained are reported in Table 5. The errors on the X-ray spectral
parameters (including upper limits) are at the 90
confidence level.
We discuss in the following subsections the results obtained for each of the
sources, including the few cases where a simple absorbed power law is not sufficient,
or not appropriate to represent the spectra well. To estimate the luminosity of the
candidate AGN we used H0=75 km s-1Mpc-1 to convert the redshift (of the suggested counterpart) to distance.
The lower limits on the UVOT magnitudes are given at the
level. The UVOT positional uncertainties are dominated by a 0.5
systematic uncertainty (90% confidence) for each source. All X-ray fluxes
and luminosities are corrected for absorption. The absorption due to
intervening material along the line of sight is first obtained with the
nh tool based on the measurements of H I made by Dickey & Lockman (1990). It
is also compared to the values obtained from the Leiden/Argentine/Bonn (LAB)
surveys of Galactic H I in the Galaxy. The LAB Survey is the most sensitive
Milky Way H I survey to date, with the most extensive coverage both spatially
and kinematically and an angular resolution of 0.6 degrees (Kaberla et al. 2005).
For each source, the two values are reported in Table 5 for
comparison.
Table 2: X-ray position (equatorial and Galactic) of the X-ray counterparts to the 17 sources studied with Swift/XRT.
Table 3: List of newly identified infrared counterparts in the 2MASS and 2MASX catalogues.
An absorbed power-law represents the Swift/XRT spectrum well with
= 0.98 for 63 degrees of freedom (d.o.f.). The value of the absorption
(Table 5) is compatible with the value of Galactic absorption
along the line of sight. This indicates that the source
is not significantly locally absorbed. This further argues in favour of the hard X-ray source being the blazar as these objects do not usually show significant intrinsic absorption.
At z=0.087, the 2-10 keV luminosity of the source is
erg/s.
We note that the extrapolated 20-40 keV flux of the Swift spectrum is about
twice as high as the INTEGRAL flux of 0.6 mCrab reported in Götz et al. (2006).
If the extrapolation of the power-law is valid, then this indicates variability, as
expected in a BL Lac.
We first checked the XRT count rates for variability between the different
pointings. The source shows some variability between high flux states (up to 0.45 cts/s) and lower flux states (down to
0.11 cts/s). We extracted a single spectrum from one of each of the three pointings. An absorbed power-law
fits the data well in all
cases (
=1.19 for 89 d.o.f., 1.29 for 14 d.o.f. and 1.26 for 98 d.o.f., for pointings #1,
2 and 3, respectively). The best spectral parameters of all three pointings are reported in
Table 5, and they are in good agreement with those obtained by Götz et al. (2006) from a ROSAT observation of TW Pic. In addition, no cut-off is seen in the XRT spectrum (which extends to higher energy than the ROSAT spectrum). The extrapolation of the XRT spectral model to the 20-40 keV range leads to a flux that is compatible with the flux measured by INTEGRAL (0.9 mCrab). All these points (including the spatial coincidences discussed above) further confirm that IGR J05346-5759 is TW Pic, including the spectral variability of IGR J05346-5759 as TW Pic is known to be variable. This variability has been used by Norton et al. (2000) to refute the intermediate polar (IP) type for this source. We therefore conclude that IGR J05346-5759 is the hard X-ray counterpart to TW Pic, and thus, is a CV.
The spectrum is well-fitted with an absorbed power-law (C=19.9 for 14 bins). The spectral parameters reported in Table 5 are fully consistent with those reported from the Chandra observation of this source (Tomsick et al. 2008a). Although the poor statistical significance of the parameters we obtain does not allow us to constrain the possible spectral variability for this source, the flux we obtain from the Swift observation is about five times higher than during the Chandra observation (Tomsick et al. 2008a). This may indicate significant variation of the mass accretion rate.
Table 4: Magnitudes and UVOT position of the newly identified optical and UV counterparts in the USNO-B1.0 catalogue (I, R and B bands) and Swift/UVOT detector (V, U, UVW1, UVM2, and UVW2 bands). The B magnitudes are those obtained from the USNO-B1.0 catalogue, except where indicated. The long dashes indicate the absence of corresponding data.
listed
in the NED database. The XRT position is consistent with that of MAPS-NGP O-379-0073388,
which provides further confirmation that the high energy source and the AGN are
the same. We found a single 2MASS source within the XRT error circle, and although the
source is not reported as extended it lies only 0.9
from the position of the AGN
reported in NED, which indicates the two objects are probably the same. A single
source is also found within the XRT error circle in the USNO-B1.0 catalogue and UVOT images
(Table 4).
As the source is very weak, we extracted an average spectrum from the two Swift pointings. The spectrum has too few counts for a spectral analysis to be possible. Although this source is the faintest from our sample that we detect with XRT, and the very low flux could indicate a lower probability that it is associated with the IGR source, the good spatial coincidence with the AGN along with the fact that this is the only XRT source in the IBIS error circle that we detect make IGR J13000+2529 a strong AGN candidate.
Table 5: X-ray spectral analysis. Errors and upper limits are all given at the 90% level.
As the source may be significantly variable (Chernyakova et al. 2005), we fitted each
spectrum from each independent pointing separately. An absorbed power-law fits all spectra
rather well (
in the range 0.6 to 1.40 for 30 to 13 d.o.f.). Since the absorption is
poorly constrained and given that Chernyakova et al. (2005) mention a relatively stable value of
cm-2, we froze
to this value in all our fits. Note that for
all pointings the value obtained for
when it is allowed to
vary is in good agreement, or compatible with Chernyakova et al. (2005). The spectral results reported in
Table 5 show some slight variability especially between the first
pointing and the following ones, which are slightly softer. The spectral parameters are
those expected for an accreting pulsar and, assuming a distance of 5.5 kpc, lead to a
2-10 keV luminosity of about 8-
erg/s, typical for these objects.
![]() |
Figure 1:
Contour plot of the power-law photon index ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Open with DEXTER |
We extracted an average spectrum from the two pointings for each of the four sources.
The spectrum of source #1 has a low statistical quality. The spectrum was
fitted with an absorbed power-law (C=38.5 for 15 bins). When all parameters are left
free to vary, they are very poorly constrained (Table 5). Although
only an upper limit can be obtained from the absorption, visual inspection of the spectrum
shows that the source may show significant absorption.
Fig. 1 represents the contour plot of
vs.
.
It is clear from this
figure that the value of
is tightly correlated to that of
as expected.
This figure, however, shows that for
,
a value typical for most high energy
sources, this source is significantly (intrinsically) absorbed as would be expected from a Sey 2.
We note that, to obtain the 20-40 keV flux of 0.5 mCrab seen with INTEGRAL (Bird et al. 2007), a harder power-law (
)
is needed. Even in that case,
significant absorption is implied by the fit. The 2-10 keV luminosity at z=0.0365 is
erg/s, compatible with the luminosity of an AGN.
An absorbed power-law provides a good fit to the spectrum of source #2
(C=7.6 for 15 bins). The spectrum is consistent with little or no absorption in
this source. The absence of significant absorption in the spectrum of the source argues
in favour of a nearby object. The extrapolated 20-40 keV flux is well below the
INTEGRAL flux. A hard power-law with a photon index 0.35 would be
needed to reach the 20-40 keV flux observed by INTEGRAL. These last points argue
against an association of source #2 with the IGR source.
The X-ray spectrum of source #3 is well-fitted with an absorbed power-law
(C =7.7 for 14 bins). The quite steep power-law and the low flux obtained with
the lower limit of ,
may indicate that the spectrum is thermal. Replacing
the power-law by a black-body also gives a good fit (C=7.5 for 15 bins).
Note that since the value of
is poorly constrained, it was frozen to the
value of Galactic
.
The black-body temperature is
keV for a luminosity
of
erg/s, with D10 the distance in units of
10 kpc. The probable low value of the absorption
and the bright IR and optical counterparts argue in favour of a nearby object. In that
case, the rather flat SED, black-body shape and temperature of the X-ray spectrum
indicate that this is probably a young stellar object (YSO), e.g. a T Tauri star.
The softness of the source renders it difficult to reconcile the emission of
this object with that at energies >20 keV. A very hard photon index of
1.0
would be needed to be compatible with the 20-40 keV flux. Such a power-law slope is
incompatible with the XRT spectrum. We conclude that this object is certainly not
related to the IGR source.
As for the 2 previous objects, the X-ray spectrum of source #4 is well-fitted
with an absorbed power-law (C=4.7 for 15 bins). A quite absorbed source
with a very steep power-law seems to be favoured here. We note, however, that a simple
power-law (with no absorption) leads to more physical results for this source. As a
compromise the value of absorption was frozen to the Galactic .
A 0.6
-0.2+0.3
keV black-body also fits the data well (C=6.2 for 15 bins). In any case, the
extrapolation of the spectra to the INTEGRAL range falls well below the
20-40 keV flux. A power-law with a value of the photon index incompatible with the
XRT spectrum (
)
would be needed. This shows that this source
and the IGR source are very probably not related.
To conclude, the broad band (counterpart and X-ray) analysis of the four Swift objects found within the IBIS error circle of IGR J15161-3827 leads us to conclude that the IGR source is very probably associated with the Liner/Sey 2 object LEDA 2816946.
As the source may show some variability, we extracted a spectrum from each
of the six pointings. Pointings #1 and #3 are quite short (<1 ks) so we do not
consider them further. An unabsorbed power-law provides acceptable fits to
pointings #2 and 4 (
between 1.3 for 61 d.o.f. and 1.6 for 95 d.o.f.), but not to
pointings #5 and #6, where a significant excess is detected at soft X-rays.
Haberl et al. (2002) also mention the need for a black-body to account for a soft excess
in their XMM spectra. Adding a black-body to the power-law improves the fits
greatly. We point out that Haberl et al. (2002) used a much more sophisticated model,
but given the lower quality of our data, we only use the simple phenomenological
models. However, since they report some absorption in the spectra we also included
an absorption component. The resulting model is therefore
phabs*(bbody+powerlaw) in the XSPEC terminology. When left free to
vary,
tends toward very low values, although the 90% upper limit is (marginally)
compatible with
cm-2 (Haberl et al. 2002). We therefore fixed
to this value in our fits. The results are reported in Table 6.
The variations of the flux do not seem to be related to spectral changes, but they are
more probably due to slight variations of the accretion rate.
Table 6: Spectral parameters obtained from the fits to the XRT spectra of IGR J15479-4529.
An absorbed power-law provides an acceptable, although not perfect,
fit (
= 1.7 for 18 d.o.f.) to the XRT spectrum. The value of the absorption is
below the Galactic value on the line of sight, and we obtain an upper limit
consistent with the value of
cm-2 obtained with
Chandra (Tomsick et al. 2008b). Landi et al. (2007) mentioned the presence of
black-body emission in the spectrum. We added such a component in our spectral
fits (both with and without absorption), but in no case did it provide a noticeable improvement over the absorbed power-law fit. The extrapolated 20-40 keV flux of
2.3
-1.1+1.7 mCrab is higher than the IBIS 20-40 keV flux of 0.7 mCrab reported by Bird et al. (2007). This may argue in favour of an association of this source with
the INTEGRAL source, suggesting that it undergoes significant flux variations.
The hard power-law index, low value of the absorption and position on the plane
of the sky close to the Sagittarius arm would tend to suggest this object has a
Galactic origin. Optical
observations allowed Steeghs et al. (2008) to detect a possible counterpart within the
Chandra error box of this source. Optical spectroscopy of this source
permitted Steeghs et al. (2008) to further conclude that this source is a CV, probably
containing a magnetic white dwarf (see also Butler et al., submitted to ApJ).
![]() |
Figure 2:
From top to bottom and left to right 2.9![]() ![]() ![]() |
Open with DEXTER |
As both sources are rather faint, we accumulated average spectra from the four
pointings. The spectrum of source #1 is not well-fitted by an absorbed power-law
(C=43 for 14 bins). Significant residuals are found at low energy. Such soft
excesses have been reported in a number of AGN (e.g., paper 1 and references therein).
Adding an unabsorbed black-body greatly improves the fit (C=8.0 for 14 d.o.f.).
The black-body has a temperature of 0.4
-0.1+0.2 keV, and a 0.5-10 keV
luminosity of
1.5-0.5+0.75
erg/s assuming a distance z=0.013.
The other parameters are reported in Table 5. The source is strongly
absorbed, but not Compton-thick. The extrapolated 20-40 keV flux is 4.5 times lower
than the 20-40 keV IBIS flux of 2.6 mCrab reported by Bird et al. (2007).
As for source #1, a simple absorbed power-law does not provide a good description of
the spectrum of source #2. It in particular gives negative values for the power-law index.
Even fixing the latter to a fiducial value of 2 does not help. We used a similar model as for
source #1, and this led to a good fit (C=11.7 for 14 bins). The value of the photon index is
poorly constrained (Table 5). In subsequent runs it was fixed to
2.0. Even in those cases, the source is highly absorbed and could be a
Compton-thick object with
cm-2. In this latter case,
the extrapolated 20-40 keV flux is 8.2 times lower than the IBIS flux of
IGR J20286+2544.
Although the flux of source #2 highly depends on the value of the photon index, our results indicate that IGR J20286+2544, the source seen by INTEGRAL, is probably a blend between Swift J202834.9+254359 and Swift J202828.7+254322, with a stronger contribution from the former. We also note that the high flux obtained by INTEGRAL may indicate significant variability in those sources. It has to be noted that the high absorption in source #2 would argue in favour of the source being a Sey 2, similar to source #1.
An absorbed power-law fits the spectrum well (
= 0.3 for 8 d.o.f.).
The 2-10 keV luminosity at z=0.0717 is 5.4
erg/s,
which is typical for this type of object. The low value of the absorption is
also compatible with the source being a Sey 1.
The position of the Swift source we found is 4.4
away from the best IBIS
position, and is, therefore, slightly outside the 4.0
90
IBIS error
circle reported in Bird et al. (2007). Given the compatibility of the 3
error
circles of both the INTEGRAL and Swift sources, we first consider the possibility
that the two sources are associated. Its IR counterpart has a well-measured
magnitude in the
band only. There is no USNO-B1.0 source within the Swift
error circle with
.
The UVOT telescope observed the field in
the UVW1 filter. The uvotdetect tool did not yield a detection of a source
within the XRT error circle. The presence of a bright UVW1=13 source at 23.8
from the candidate counterpart renders, however, the detection of a possible
counterpart difficult (the source is so bright that part of its flux is within the
XRT error circle). Keeping this caveat in mind, we can roughly estimate a 3
upper limit
UVW1 >21.95 based on the faintest source detected (at a confidence level
greater than 3
)
with uvotdetect.
The Swift spectrum extracted from the single pointing available has 19 cts.
An absorbed power-law is a good representation of the spectrum (C=10.4 for 14 bins).
As the value of the absorption is very poorly constrained (
cm-2
at 90% confidence if left free to vary) we fixed it to the Galactic value along the
line of sight. The spectral parameters are reported in Table 5. A
fit with a black-body instead of the power-law also provides a good description of
the data although statistically worse (C=12.0 for 14 bins). The black-body has
a temperature of
1.0-0.3+0.7 keV, and a luminosity of
1.5
erg/s at a distance of 10 kpc. The extrapolated
20-40 keV flux (
erg cm-2 s-1) is
100 times below the IBIS flux
reported in Bird et al. (2007). We, therefore, conclude that this source
(Swift J031818.0-001748) and IGR J03184-0014 are probably not related.
Given the faintness of the source, it is quite difficult to unveil its true
nature. The fact that it is well-detected in the K band only, and that it has no
counterpart in the optical and UV bands either points to a very distant object or a
faint Galactic source. If we assume the source is an AGN, with a luminosity of
erg/s (the luminosity of the faintest AGN detected in Paper 1), this
implies a distance z=0.144. The only source that was farther than this in paper 1
(IGR J09523-6231) was not significantly detected in the IR, but had, on the other
hand, a well detected U-band counterpart compatible with the emission from the
accretion disc of the AGN. The absorption on the line of sight for the latter
object was also much higher than in the case of IGR J03184-0014, which suggests
that, if IGR J03184-0014 was an AGN it would probably be detected with the UVOT.
We conclude that it is unlikely that this object is an AGN. In the case of a
Galactic object, the spectral parameters, while being very poorly constrained, may
be compatible with the source being either an active star, a CV, or a neutron star
X-ray Binary. At 8 kpc, the 2-10 keV power-law luminosity would be
erg/s. These again point towards the Swift and INTEGRAL
sources not being related.
An absorbed power-law is a good representation of the Swift spectrum
(C=7.4 for 14 bins). As the value of the absorption is very poorly constrained
(
cm-2 at 90% confidence if it is left free to vary), we
fixed it to the Galactic value along the line of sight. The spectral parameters are
reported in Table 5. A fit with a black-body instead of the power-law
also provides a good description of the data (C=6.53 for 14 bins). The black-body
has a temperature of
0.8-0.3+0.4 keV, and a luminosity
erg/s, where D10 is the distance
in units of 10 kpc. The extrapolated 20-40 keV flux (based on the power-law model)
is within
-
erg cm-2 s-1, which is more than
40 times lower than the IBIS 20-40 keV flux of 0.9 mCrab reported in
Götz et al. (2006). We note, however, that during a second observing campaign, the same
team did not detect the source with INTEGRAL, which may indicate significant variability.
![]() |
Figure 3:
4.3![]() ![]() ![]() |
Open with DEXTER |
Götz et al. (2006) suggested the IGR source may be an X-ray binary in the LMC. In fact
this assumption is in good agreement with the fact that no counterparts are reported
in any of the optical and IR catalogues which may be due to the large distance to the source.
Assuming the source is at the distance of the LMC, the 2-10 keV luminosity is
erg/s, which is therefore compatible with this hypothesis.
A very weak XRT excess is found within the IBIS error circle. The XRT position contains
a 2MASX source (Table 3). It also contains two USNO-B1.0
sources. The one that is reported in Table 4 is the closest to
the position of the 2MASX source (1.1
away). It also has well-defined B and I magnitudes while the second source does not. The 2MASX source is reported in the NED
database as ESO 60-24/NGC 2788A, a z=0.013 galaxy. The detection of the source at
X-ray energies with INTEGRAL and Swift suggests it is an AGN. The X-ray position
falls right on the nucleus of the Galaxy as can be seen in the UVOT U and UVW1 images
of the field (Fig. 3).
The XRT source is too weak to study any possible variability. We therefore
extracted an averaged spectrum from the four pointings. An absorbed power-law seems
to be a good representation of the spectrum. If we allow all parameters to be free to
vary, they are, however, very poorly constrained (C=23 for 14 bins,
cm-2 and
). In order to try and
have a more constraining range of values, we refitted the spectrum forcing
.
An equally good fit is obtained with C=24 for 14 bins. The values are reported in
Table 5. The source may be intrinsically absorbed, and
this may point towards a Sey 2 object, as intrinsic absorption is expected in this case. As the source is a Sey candidate, and to obtain a reasonable estimate of its flux, we fixed the power law photon index to 2.0. The 2-10 keV unabsorbed flux is 2.7
erg cm-2 s-1, which translate into a 2-10 keV luminosity of 8.7
erg/s. This value lies in the usual range for Seyfert galaxies.
The XRT spectrum is well-fitted by an absorbed power-law (C = 8.5 for
14 bins). The value of the absorption is not very well-constrained
(Table 5), but may indicate little intrinsic absorption.
Following Tomsick et al. (2008b), we also fitted the data with a non-absorbed
power-law. The fit has a worse C-statistic value of 19.5 for 14 bins, which indicates
that absorption is required in the fit. A good fit is also obtained when fixing
to the Galactic value along the line of sight (C = 9.15 for 14 bins). The
spectrum is then much harder (
)
and is not consistent with the very
hard photon index of
obtained with Chandra
(Tomsick et al. 2008b). Such a hard spectrum may indicate that the source is an HMXB.
Since we see some variability, we extracted spectra from all pointings
and analysed them separately. We report here only the two extreme cases, as the others
have parameters that are intermediate between those two. An absorbed power-law fits
both spectra well (
= 0.75 and 0.88 for 16 and 34 d.o.f., respectively). The value
of
is consistent with the Galactic value on the line of sight, which indicates
the object is not highly intrinsically absorbed. The position of the source towards
the Galactic Bulge may indicate a Galactic source. We note that the absence of a
UV counterpart with the presence of a possible optical counterpart is also more
compatible with a Galactic source as, in case of an AGN, the optical would be also
completely absorbed, while a Galactic stellar component could have significant
emission in optical and not in the UV domain (see, e.g., paper 1). The compatibility
of
with the Galactic value may indicate that the source lies at a significant
distance. The 2-10 keV luminosity of the highest state (Table 5)
is
/D
erg/s (where D10 is the
distance in units of 10 kpc), which, combined with the spectral shape, may
indicate the source is an HMXB.
The XRT spectrum is well-fitted with an absorbed power-law (C=4 for 15 bins).
The value of the absorption is not well-constrained, and it may indicate that some
intrinsic absorption occurs in this source. We, however, note that it is
marginally compatible with the Galactic value along the line of sight. Fixing
to
the Galactic value also provides a good description of the spectrum (C=11.2 for
15 bins). In this case, the photon index is harder (
). In this latter
case, the 20-40 keV extrapolated flux is in good agreement with the 20-40 keV
INTEGRAL flux of 1.3 mCrab (Bird et al. 2007). This may further argue in favour of an
association between the Swift and INTEGRAL sources, although the flux
obtained when all parameters are left free to vary is lower than that obtained with
INTEGRAL. We, in addition, note that an absorbed black-body also gives a good
representation of the data. It has a temperature of 0.9
-0.2+0.1 keV and a
luminosity of
erg/s at 10 kpc. Bird et al. (2007) tentatively classify this
source as an AGN. We do not find strong evidence of this possibility,
as the spectral parameters are also compatible with a Galactic X-ray binary. Here again,
the position towards the Galactic bulge may favour a Galactic source. We note that
the absence of a UV counterpart with the presence of a possible optical one is also more compatible with a Galactic source as, in case of an AGN, the optical would be also completely absorbed, while a Galactic stellar component could have significant emission in optical and not in the UV domain.
Table 7: Summary of the possible type for each counterpart of the seventeen sources, obtained through the analysis presented in this paper.
In this paper, we reported the X-ray analysis of seventeen hard X-ray sources discovered by INTEGRAL. The refined X-ray positions provided by the Swift observations (Table 2) allowed us to pinpoint the possible IR and optical counterparts in most of the cases. Table 7 reports the conclusions of our analysis concerning the possible type of each of the seventeen sources. We confirm the associations and types previously suggested for five sources:
In one case (IGR J19267+1325), we do not detect any X-ray source within the IBIS
error circle. A bright source, however, has a position that is marginally consistent, and,
although it is slightly outside the IBIS error circle, our analysis leads us to suggest
that both sources are related. We could not unambiguously unveil its true nature, although we
favoured a Galactic source.
Of the six remaining source:
Acknowledgements
J.R. thanks the Swift help desk for their great help and rapid answer. J.A.T. acknowledges partial support from a NASA INTEGRAL Guest Observer grant NNX07AQ13G. We warmly thank the anonymous referee for his/her very constructive comments, that really helped to improve to quality of this paper. We acknowledge the use of data collected with the Swift observatory. This research has made use of the USNOFS Image and Catalogue Archive operated by the United States Naval Observatory, Flagstaff Station (http://www.nofs.navy.mil/data/fchpix/). This research has made use of the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France. It also makes use of data products from the Two Micron All Sky Survey, which is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.