Broadband Observations of the Be/X-ray Binary Pulsar RX J0440.9+4431: Discovery of a Cyclotron Absorption Line

Abstract

We report the results of an analysis of data obtained with the INTEGRAL, Swift and RXTE observatories during the 2010 April and September outbursts of the X-ray pulsar RX J0440.9+4431. The temporal and spectral properties of the pulsar in a wide energy band (0.6-120 keV) were studied for the first time. We discovered a ~32 keV cyclotron resonant scattering feature in the source spectrum, that allowed us to estimate the magnetic field strength of the neutron star as B~3.2 x 10^12 G. The estimate of the magnetic field strength was confirmed by a comprehensive analysis of the noise power spectrum of the source. Based on the recurrence time between Type I outbursts the orbital period of the binary system can be estimated as ~155 days. We have shown that the pulse profile has a sinusoidal-like single-peaked shape and has practically no dependence on the source luminosity or energy band.

8 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS