The long-term spin-down trend of ultra-luminous X-ray pulsar M82 X-2

Jiren Liu

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arXiv · 2312.16770

The long-term spin-down trend of ultra-luminous X-ray pulsar M82 X-2

Jiren Liu

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Abstract

The discovery in 2014 of the pulsation from the ultra-luminous X-ray source (ULX) M82 X-2 in 2014 has changed our view of ULXs. Because of the relatively short baseline over which pulsations have been detected so far, M82 X-2's spin state had been assumed to be in an equilibrium state. Using \cha and \xmm archive data, we are able to investigate the pulsation of M82 X-2 back to 2005 and 2001. The newly determined spin frequencies clearly show a long-term spin-down trend. If this trend is caused by magnetic threading, we infer a dipolar magnetic field of $\sim1.2\times10^{13}$ G and that a mild beaming factor ($\sim4$) is needed to match the braking torque with the mass accretion torque. On the other hand, there are \nus observations showing instantaneous spin-down behaviours, which might favour a variable prograde/retrograde flow scenario for M82 X-2.

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Jiren Liu. 2023-12-28. The long-term spin-down trend of ultra-luminous X-ray pulsar M82 X-2. https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.16770

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