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The Reflection Component from Cygnus X-1 in the Soft State Measured by NuSTAR and Suzaku

  • John A. Tomsick
  • , Michael A. Nowak
  • , Michael Parker
  • , Jon M. Miller
  • , Andy C. Fabian
  • , Fiona A. Harrison
  • , Matteo Bachetti
  • , Didier Barret
  • , Steven E. Boggs
  • , Finn Erland Christensen
  • , William W. Craig
  • , Karl Forster
  • , Felix Fuerst
  • , Brian W. Grefenstette
  • , Charles J. Hailey
  • , Ashley L. King
  • , Kristin K. Madsen
  • , Lorenzo Natalucci
  • , Katja Pottschmidt
  • , Randy R. Ross
  • Daniel Stern, Dominic J. Walton, Joern Wilms, William W. Zhang
    • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    • California Institute of Technology
    • CNRS
    • University of California at Berkeley
    • Columbia University
    • National Institute for Astrophysics
    • NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
    • College of the Holy Cross
    • NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
    • Erlangen Centre for Astroparticle Physics
    • University of Cambridge
    • University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

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    Abstract

    The black hole binary Cygnus X-1 was observed in late-2012 with the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and Suzaku, providing spectral coverage over the ~1-300 keV range. The source was in the soft state with a multi-temperature blackbody, power-law, and reflection components along with absorption from highly ionized material in the system. The high throughput of NuSTAR allows for a very high quality measurement of the complex iron line region as well as the rest of the reflection component. The iron line is clearly broadened and is well-described by a relativistic blurring model, providing an opportunity to constrain the black hole spin. Although the spin constraint depends somewhat on which continuum model is used, we obtain a*>0.83 for all models that provide a good description of the spectrum. However, none of our spectral fits give a disk inclination that is consistent with the most recently reported binary values for Cyg X-1. This may indicate that there is a >13 degree misalignment between the orbital plane and the inner accretion disk (i.e., a warped accretion disk) or that there is missing physics in the spectral models.
    Original languageEnglish
    JournalAstrophysical Journal
    Volume780
    Issue number1
    Number of pages10
    ISSN0004-637X
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2014

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