The X-Ray Variable Sky as Seen by MAXI: The Future of Dust-echo Tomography with Bright Galactic X-Ray Bursts

Corrales, Lia and Mills, Brianna S. and Heinz, Sebastian and Williger, Gerard (2019) The X-Ray Variable Sky as Seen by MAXI: The Future of Dust-echo Tomography with Bright Galactic X-Ray Bursts. ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL, 874. ISSN 1538-4357

Preview

Text 1903.08299.pdf Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

Bright, short duration X-ray flares from accreting compact objects produce thin, dust scattering rings that enable dust-echo tomography: high-precision distance measurements and mapping of the line-of-sight distribution of dust. This work looks to the past activity of X-ray transient outbursts in order to predict the number of sight lines available for dust-echo tomography. We search for and measure the properties of 3σ significant flares in the 2-4 keV light curves of all objects available in the public MAXI archive. We derive a fluence sensitivity limit of 10-3 erg cm-2 for the techniques used to analyze the light curves. This limits the study mainly to flares from Galactic X-ray sources. We obtain the number density of flares and estimate the total fluence of the corresponding dust echoes. However, the sharpness of a dust-echo ring depends on the duration of a flare relative to quiescence. We select flares that are shorter than their corresponding quiescent period to calculate a number density distribution for dust-echo rings as a function of fluence. The results are fit with a power law of slope -2.3 ± 0.1. Extrapolating this to dimmer flares, we estimate that the next generation of X-ray telescopes will be 30 times more sensitive than current observatories, resulting in 10-30 dust ring echoes per year. The new telescopes will also be 10-100 times more sensitive than Chandra to dust ring echoes from the intergalactic medium.

Actions (login required)

Edit Item