4XMM J181330.1-175110: a new supergiant fast X-ray transient

Abstract

Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients (SFXT) are a sub-class of High Mass X-ray Binaries (HMXB) in which a compact object accretes part of the clumpy wind of the blue supergiant companion, triggering a series of brief, X-ray flares lasting a few kiloseconds. Currently, only about fifteen SFXTs are known. The EXTraS catalog provides the timing signatures of every source observed by the EPIC instrument on-board XMM-Newton. Among the most peculiar sources, in terms of variability, we selected 4XMM J181330.1-17511 (J1813). We analyzed all publicly available X-ray data pointed at the J1813 position to determine the source's duty cycle and to provide a comprehensive description of its timing and spectral behavior during its active phase. Additionally, we searched for the optical and infrared counterpart of the X-ray source in public databases and fitted its Spectral Energy Distribution (SED). The optical-to-MIR SED of J1813 is consistent with a highly-absorbed (A$_V\sim38$) B0 star at $\sim$10 kpc. During its X-ray active phase, the source is characterized by continuous $\sim$thousands seconds-long flares with peak luminosities (2-12 keV) ranging from $10^{34}$ to $4 \times 10^{35}$ erg s$^{-1}$. Its X-ray spectrum is consistent with a high-absorbed power-law model with N$_H \sim 1.8 \times 10^{23}$ cm$^{-2}$ and $\Gamma \sim 1.66$. No spectral variability was observed as a function of time or flux. J1813 is in a quiescent state $\sim$60\% of the time, with an upper-limit luminosity of $8 \times 10^{32}$ erg s$^{-1}$ (at 10 kpc), implying an observed long-term X-ray flux variability $>$500. The optical counterpart alone indicates J1813 is a HMXB. Its transient nature, duty cycle, the amplitude of observed X-ray variability, the shape and luminosity of the X-ray flares -- and the lack of known X-ray outbursts ($>10^{36}$ erg s$^{-1}$) -- strongly support the identification of J1813 as an SFXT.