Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Sep 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011xau5.confe..38m&link_type=abstract
"The Second Ferrara Workshop on "X-ray Astrophysics up to 511 keV", held in Ferrara (Italy), September 14 - 16, 2011, article #3
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Scientific paper
We present a review of the Swift monitoring program of Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients (SFXT). This class of High-Mass X-ray Binaries with O or B supergiant stars as optical counterparts shows X-ray outbursts about 4 orders of magnitude brighter than the quiescent state. Thanks to its scheduling flexibility, Swift has recently opened a new line of investigation on these sources. It allowed us to regularly monitor a small sample of SFXTs with 2-3 observations per week (1-2 ks) with the X-ray Telescope (XRT) over their entire visibility period (9 months/year) for over 2 years. This intense monitoring caught the sources throughout all phases of their lives (outbursts, intermediate emission level, and quiescence) with very sensitive non-serendipitous observations and allowed us to determine long-term properties and duty cycles. We also monitored two sources along their whole orbital periods and provided for the first time well sampled light curves suitable for testing different mechanisms proposed to explain the nature of these transients. Finally, thanks to Swift's autonomous and rapid re-pointing, we were able to catch and study, for the first time, the X-ray evolution of bright outburst episodes over timescales of days/weeks, thus determining the actual duration of the events. We also characterized the shape of their X-ray spectra through simultaneous broadband spectroscopy.
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