Recent X-ray measurements of the accretion-powered pulsar 4U 1907+09

Abstract

X-ray observations of the accreting X-ray pulsar 4U~1907+09, obtained during February 1996 with the Proportional Counter Array on the Rossi X-ray Timing Experiment (RXTE), have enabled the first measurement of the intrinsic pulse period Ppulse since 1984: Ppulse=440.341[+0.012,-0.017] s. 4U 1907+09 is in a binary system with a blue supergiant. The orbital parameters were solved and this enabled the correction for orbital delay effects of a measurement of Ppulse obtained in 1990 with Ginga. Thus, three spin down rates could be extracted from four pulse periods obtained in 1983, 1984, 1990, and 1996. These are within 8% equal to a value of dPpulse/dt=+0.225 s/yr. This suggest that the pulsar is perhaps in a monotonous spin down mode since its discovery in 1983. Furthermore, the RXTE observations show transient ~18 s oscillations during a flare that lasted about 1 hour. The oscillations may be interpreted as Keplerian motion of an accretion disk near the magnetospheric radius. This, and the notion that the co-rotation radius is much larger than any conceivable value for the magnetospheric radius (because of the long spin period), renders it unlikely that this pulsar spins near equilibrium like is suspected for other slowing accreting X-ray pulsars. We suggest as an alternative that perhaps the frequent occurrence of a retrograde transient accretion disk may be consistently slowing the pulsar down. Further observations of flares can provide more evidence of this.