1. Discovery of the Black Hole X-Ray Binary Transient MAXI J1348–630
- Author
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Megumi Shidatsu, Yasuharu Sugawara, Ken Ebisawa, Mayu Tominaga, Motoki Oeda, Tatehiro Mihara, Nobuyuki Kawai, Mutsumi Sugizaki, Satoshi Nakahira, Yoshihiro Ueda, and Hitoshi Negoro
- Subjects
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) ,Physics ,General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology ,Space and Planetary Science ,High-energy astronomy ,Astrophysics::High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena ,X-ray binary ,FOS: Physical sciences ,Astronomy and Astrophysics ,Transient (oscillation) ,Astrophysics ,Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena ,Astrophysics::Galaxy Astrophysics - Abstract
We report the first half-year monitoring of the new Galactic black hole candidate MAXI J1348-630, discovered on 2019 January 26 with the Gas Slit Camera (GSC) on-board MAXI. During the monitoring period, the source exhibited two outburst peaks, where the first peak flux (at T=14 day from the discovery of T =0) was ~4 Crab (2-20 keV) and the second one (at T =132 day) was ~0.4 Crab (2-20 keV). The source exhibited distinct spectral transitions between the high/soft and low/hard states and an apparent "q"-shape curve on the hardness-intensity diagram, both of which are well-known characteristics of black hole binaries. Compared to other bright black hole transients, MAXI J1348-630 is characterized by its low disk-temperature (~0.75 keV at the maximum) and high peak flux in the high/soft state. The low peak-temperature leads to a large innermost radius that is identified as the Innermost Stable Circular Orbit (ISCO), determined by the black hole mass and spin. Assuming the empirical relation between the soft-to-hard transition luminosity (Ltrans) and the Eddington luminosity (LEdd), Ltrans/LEdd ~ 0.02, and a face-on disk around a non-spinning black hole, the source distance and the black hole mass are estimated to be D ~ 4 kpc and ~7 (D/4 kpc) Mo, respectively. The black hole is more massive if the disk is inclined and the black hole is spinning. These results suggest that MAXI J1348-630 may host a relatively massive black hole among the known black hole binaries in our Galaxy., Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, accepted by ApJL
- Published
- 2020
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