A ∼ 3.8 hr PERIODICITY FROM AN ULTRASOFT ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS CANDIDATE
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alabama, Box 870324, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487 (United States)
- CNRS, IRAP, 9 avenue du Colonel Roche, BP 44346, F-31028 Toulouse Cedex 4 (France)
Very few galactic nuclei are found to show significant X-ray quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs). After carefully modeling the noise continuum, we find that the ∼3.8 hr QPO in the ultrasoft active galactic nucleus candidate 2XMM J123103.2+110648 was significantly detected (∼5σ) in two XMM-Newton observations in 2005, but not in the one in 2003. The QPO root mean square (rms) is very high and increases from ∼25% in 0.2-0.5 keV to ∼50% in 1-2 keV. The QPO probably corresponds to the low-frequency type in Galactic black hole X-ray binaries, considering its large rms and the probably low mass (∼10{sup 5} M {sub ☉}) of the black hole in the nucleus. We also fit the soft X-ray spectra from the three XMM-Newton observations and find that they can be described with either pure thermal disk emission or optically thick low-temperature Comptonization. We see no clear X-ray emission from the two Swift observations in 2013, indicating lower source fluxes than those in XMM-Newton observations.
- OSTI ID:
- 22215405
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol. 776, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 2041-8205
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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