# A BeppoSAX study of the pulsating transient X0115+63: the first X-ray spectrum with four cyclotron harmonic features

## 1 Introduction

Cyclotron features provide a powerful tool for directly measuring the high ($`B10^{12}`$ G) magnetic field strengths of accreting neutron stars in X-ray binaries. Because the electron cyclotron energy is $`E_{\mathrm{cyc}}=11.6B_{12}`$ keV, where $`B_{12}`$ is the magnetic field strength in unit of $`10^{12}`$ G, these features are expected to be observed at hard X–ray energies. Absorption-like features interpreted as cyclotron resonant scattering were first discovered in the spectrum of the low-mass X-ray binary pulsar Her X–1 (Trümper et al. (1978)) and, subsequently, in the hard X–ray transient pulsar X0115+63 (Wheaton et al. (1979)). Since then, cyclotron features have been detected in other X–ray binary pulsars with Ginga (Mihara (1995)), HEXE/TTM on Mir (Kendziorra et al. (1994)), OSSE onboard CGRO (Grove et al. (1995)) and, more recently, with RXTE (Kreykenbohm et al. (1998)) and BeppoSAX (Dal Fiume et al. (1999); Santangelo et al. (1999)).

Relatively little is known on higher cyclotron harmonics. Besides the pioneering detection of two lines in the spectrum of X0115+63 (White, Swank, & Holt (1983)), the presence of two cyclotron lines has been reported for Vela X–1 (Kreykenbohm et al. (1998); Orlandini et al. (1998)), 4U1907+09 (Cusumano et al. (1998); Santangelo et al. (1999)) and A0535+26 (Kendziorra et al. (1994)). Some of these detections are still to be confirmed.

X0115+63 is one of the best studied X–ray transients (Rappaport et al. (1978)). The source shows pulsation at $`3.6`$ s while orbiting an O9e companion (V635 Cassiopeiae, Unger et al. (1998)) with a period of 24.3 days. As customary for this class of X-ray binaries, the X-ray continuum has been modelled with a power-law with an exponential cut-off at high energies and photoelectric absorption at low energies (White, Swank, & Holt (1983); Nagase et al. (1991)). Wheaton et al. (1979) , using HEAO1-A1, first reported the discovery of an absorption line at $``$20 keV. Based on HEAO1-A2 data, White, Swank & Holt (1983) detected cyclotron lines at $``$11.5 keV and $``$23 keV, that appeared to be in absorption at the pulse peak and in emission during the interpulse. By interpreting the two lines in terms of the first and second harmonics of cyclotron resonant scattering, they derived $`B1\times 10^{12}`$ G. During the February 1990 outburst, observations with the Large Area Counter onboard Ginga revelead absorption features at $``$12 keV and $``$23 keV for all pulse phases; an investigation of the X–ray spectrum up to 60 keV did not yield any evidence for higher harmonics (Nagase et al. (1991),Tamura et al. (1992)).

On February 22, 1999 the BATSE instrument onboard the CGRO satellite revealed the onset of another outburst of X0115+63 (Wilson, Harmon, & Finger (1999)). BeppoSAX observed the source with its Narrow Field Instruments (NFI) on four occasions: 1999 March 6, 19, 22, and 26. The data presented in this Letter are from the March 19 observation, when, shortly after the outburst maximum, the source was at a flux level of $``$310 mCrab. These data led to the discovery of a four harmonic cyclotron line spectrum in X0115+63, the first ever from a cosmic X-ray source. Our results predate the announcement of the discovery of the third cyclotron line in the spectrum of X0115+63 based on RossiXTE/HEXTE measurements (Heindl et al. 1999); therefore they provide also an important independent confirmation of the latter result.

## 2 Observations and Spectral Analysis

Besides the Low-Energy Concentrator Spectrometer (LECS, 0.1–10 keV, Parmar et al. (1997)) and the Medium-Energy Concentrators Spectrometer (MECS, 2–10 keV, Boella et al. 1997b ), the NFIs onboard the BeppoSAX satellite (Boella et al. 1997a ) comprise two collimated high energy detectors, the High Pressure Gas Scintillation Proportional Counter (HPGSPC, 4–60 keV, FWHM energy resolution of 8% at 10 keV and 5.5% at 20 keV, Manzo et al. (1997)), and the Phoswich Detection System (PDS, 15-200 keV, FWHM energy resolution of 24% at 20 keV, and 14% at 60 keV, Frontera et al. (1997)).

X0115+63 was observed with the NFIs aboard BeppoSAX from March 19, UT 17:05:25 to March 20, 08:42:04. All instruments were operated in their standard configuration. The effective exposure was 3.2 ks for the LECS, 31.4 ks for MECS, 30 ks for HPGSPC and 16 ks for PDS, which makes use of the rocking collimator technique to monitor the background. The 10–50 keV source flux was $`1.3\times 10^8`$ erg cm<sup>-2</sup> s<sup>-1</sup>, corresponding to a luminosity of $`L_{1050}2.5\times 10^{37}\mathrm{d}_4^2`$ erg s<sup>-1</sup>, where d<sub>4</sub> is the distance in units of 4 kpc (Tamura et al. (1992)). The source did not show any significant variability during the observation. In Fig. A BeppoSAX study of the pulsating transient X0115+63:  the first X-ray spectrum with four cyclotron harmonic features the pulse profiles folded over the best period of $`P=3.6144(1)`$ s in six different energy bands are reported. The pulse profile shows the typical double peaked structure, already apparent in the HEAO1 and Ginga data (White, Swank, & Holt (1983); Nagase et al. (1991)): a pronounced main peak (phase 0–0.35), followed by a broader and much softer second peak (phase 0.5–0.85). The shape of both peaks is clearly energy-dependent.

This Letter concentrates on the high energy X-ray spectrum ($`9100`$ keV), based on the HPGSPC and PDS data. In consideration of the strong phase dependence of the cyclotron lines of X0115+63 (Mihara (1995)), we accumulated the PHA spectra over 10 pulse phase intervals. Initially, these spectra were divided by the PHA spectrum of the Crab Nebula and multiplied by the spectral shape of the Crab Nebula, a power-law with photon index, $`\alpha `$, of 2.1, such that marked spectral features could be spotted in an approximately model- and calibration-independent fashion (Dal Fiume et al. (1999)). Dips at $``$12 keV, $``$24 keV, and $``$36 keV and, possibly, $``$48 keV were apparent in the spectra from a number of phase intervals. In particular, the spectrum of the descending edge of the main peak (phase of 0.2–0.3), shown in Fig.A BeppoSAX study of the pulsating transient X0115+63:  the first X-ray spectrum with four cyclotron harmonic features, displayed by far the deepest features at $``$12 keV, $``$24 keV, $``$36 keV and a clear evidence of a dip at $``$48 keV. This motivated us to carry out a detailed spectral analysis, with models including multiple harmonic features.

We used the following continuum models to fit the 9–100 keV spectra: (a) the Negative and Positive power laws EXponential (NPEX) model adopted by Mihara (1995) as the standard model for X–ray Pulsars observed with Ginga, $`f(E)=(AE^{\alpha _1}+BE^{+\alpha _2})\times \mathrm{exp}(E/kT)`$; (b) a power law with a high energy cut-off, $`f(E)=AE^\alpha \times \mathrm{exp}(E/kT)`$. Here $`f(E)`$ is the photon flux, $`kT`$ is the e-folding energy and $`\alpha `$ is the photon index. Independent of the continuum model used, at least three absorption-like features were required in the fit. These features were introduced in the model(s) as Gaussian filters in absorption, i.e. $`G_i(E)=1D_i\times \mathrm{exp}((EE_i^{\mathrm{cyc}})^2/(2\sigma _i^2))`$ where $`E_i^{\mathrm{cyc}}`$, $`\sigma _i`$, and $`D_i`$ are the centroid energy, width and depth of each feature. Introducing the third absorption feature at $`38`$ keV (in addition to the first two harmonics at $`12`$ and $`24`$ keV) led to a pronounced improvement in the fit, with the reduced $`\chi _{\mathrm{dof}}^2`$ decreasing from 2.5 (268 dof) to 1.7 (265 dof) in the case of the NPEX model. An F test shows that the probability of chance improvement is of $`10^{21}`$.

The HPGSPC and PDS count spectra of the descending edge of the main peak (pulse phase 0.2–0.3), together with the best fit model described above are shown in Fig. A BeppoSAX study of the pulsating transient X0115+63:  the first X-ray spectrum with four cyclotron harmonic features (upper panel): An additonal feature centered around $``$48 keV is clearly apparent in the residuals of both the HPGSPC and PDS spectra (Fig. A BeppoSAX study of the pulsating transient X0115+63:  the first X-ray spectrum with four cyclotron harmonic features bottom panel). This prompted us to introduce a fourth absorption feature, $`G_4`$, in the model; the minimum $`\chi _{\mathrm{dof}}^2`$ decreased to 1.24 (262 dof, NPEX continuum), corresponding to an F-test probability of chance improvement of $`10^{15}`$. Fig. A BeppoSAX study of the pulsating transient X0115+63:  the first X-ray spectrum with four cyclotron harmonic features shows the unfolded spectrum of X0115+63. Best fit parameters and equivalent widths are summarized in Table 1. In the same Table best-fit parameters obtained by using the power-law with an exponential cut-off are also given.

We also performed a fit with all the line centroids constrained to an integer harmonic spacing. The resulting minimum $`\chi _{\mathrm{dof}}^2`$ is 1.58(259 dof) for the NPEX model and 1.67(259 dof) for the power law plus cutoff model. An F-test gives a probability of chance improvement for the models with non-constrained line centroids $`<10^{10}`$ in both cases.

A preliminary analysis of the spectra from other phase intervals also shows significant variations of the line features with the pulse phase confirming previous findings from Ginga and RossiXTE (Heindl et al. (1999); Nagase et al. (1991)). Variations up to 10% in centroid energy are observed. Three lines are still observed at the descending edge of the soft broad peak, at phase 0.5–0.6, with centroid energies of $`11.22\pm 0.3`$ keV, $`21.69\pm 0.2`$ keV and $`32.28\pm 0.5`$ keV. A comparison with the centroid energies of the three harmonics derived by Heindl et al. (1999), based on RossiXTE data is far from straightforward in consideration of the close but still different pulse phase interval (0.7-0.76) over which their spectrum was accumulated and considering also the different phase of the outburst.

## 3 Conclusions

The spectroscopic capabilities of the high energy instruments (HPGSPC and PDS) onboard BeppoSAX allowed to us study multiple absorption-like features in the spectrum of the X-ray pulsar transient X0115+63 . In particular four features centered at energies of $`12.7`$, $`24.`$, $`36`$ keV, and $`50`$ keV were found in the descending edge of the main peak of the pulse profile. We fitted the line centroids in Table 1 with a simple linear model for the form $`E=aN`$ (with $`N=1,2,3,4`$ and $`a`$ a free parameter). Unacceptable values of $`\chi _{dof}^2`$ were obtained: 79.3(3) for the power law plus cutoff model and 71.4(3) for the NPEX model. We conclude that the line centroids reported in Table 1 are not equispaced, for both continuum models. Stated differently, the corresponding harmonic ratios 1:($`1.9\pm 0.05`$):($`2.8\pm 0.05`$):($`3.9\pm 0.1`$) are significantly different from the classical values 1:2:3:4. A closer look at the data reveals that this result can be ascribed entirely to the value of the centroid of the first harmonic. As an example, in the case of a power law plus cutoff model, the first harmonic is at 12.79$`\pm `$0.05 keV, while a fit to the other three harmonics gives a spacing of 12.02$`\pm `$0.02 keV. Similar results are obtained by using the centroid energies obtained from the NPEX continuum model. We note that, since the first harmonics lies close to the energy interval over which the slope of the X-ray spectrum steepens rapidly, the determination of its centroid energy could be affected by a somewhat inadequate modelling of the continuum. For example, the excess of “shoulder” photons, below the fundamental, as predicted in many theoretical calculations (Isenberg et al. (1998)), may cause the fitted centroid energy of the fundamental to appear higher, therefore causing the harmonic ratios to be somewhat smaller than expected.

It is well know that in strong magnetic fields, the energy spacing of cyclotron harmonics is altered by relativistic effects, i.e. $`E_N=m_ec^2\{[1+2n(B/B_{crit})\mathrm{sin}^2\theta ]^{1/2}1\}/\mathrm{sin}^2\theta `$, where $`m_e`$ is the electron mass, $`\theta `$ the angle between the photon propagation angle and the B-field, and $`B_{crit}=4.414\times 10^{13}`$ G (see e.g. Araya & Harding (1996); Wang, Wasserman & Lamb (1993)). This formula, further corrected for the gravitational redshift, was fit to the centroid energies of the four harmonics observed by BeppoSAX. While formally unacceptable ($`\chi _{dof}^2`$ 79.9(2) for the power law plus cutoff model and 35.7(2) for the NPEX model), the best fit obtained in this way was somewhat better than the simple linear fit.

Despite the uncertainties described above, we conclude that the centroid energies of the four spectral features of X0115+63 are most naturally interpreted in terms of the fundamental, second, third and fourth harmonics of cyclotron resonant features in a strong magnetic field, taking into account relativistic corrections. This is the first time that four harmonics are observed in the X-ray spectrum of any cosmic source. We find that equivalent widths of the second, third, and fourth harmonics are larger than that of the fundamental, confirming and extending previous results from Ginga (Nagase et al. (1991)). Such a trend was predicted by Alexander & Mészáros (1989, 1991), who found that two-photon scattering and two-photon emission processes have a major effect in determining the depth of the second and higher harmonics relative to the fundamental. Detailed calculations show that, while the equivalent width of the second harmonic is always larger than the fundamental, this is not necessarily the case for the third (and the fourth) harmonics. In fact the strength of the third harmonic depends strongly on $`\theta `$ and the optical depth (Isenberg et al. (1998)). Comparison of our measured spectra with the ones calculated by Alexander & Mészáros (1991) shows a qualitative agreement. A systematic study of the BeppoSAX spectra of X0115+63 as function of pulse phase for different mass accretion rates (i.e. different outburst phases) is currently underway and will be published elsewhere.

The authors wish to thank Milvia Capalbi of the BeppoSAX Scientific Data Center and the BeppoSAX Mission Director R. C. Butler.