NICER Discovery that SRGA J144459.2–604207 Is an Accreting Millisecond X-Ray Pulsar
Mason Ng, Paul S. Ray, A. Sanna, Tod E. Strohmayer, Alessandro Papitto, Giulia Illiano, A C Albayati, D. Altamirano, Tuğba Boztepe, Tolga Güver, Deepto Chakrabarty, Zaven Arzoumanian, D. J. K. Buisson, E. C. Ferrara, Keith C. Gendreau, Sébastien Guillot, Jeremy Hare, Gaurava K. Jaisawal, Christian Malacaria, M. T. Wolff
Abstract
Abstract We present the discovery, with the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), that SRGA J144459.2−604207 is a 447.9 Hz accreting millisecond X-ray pulsar (AMXP), which underwent a 4 week long outburst starting on 2024 February 15. The AMXP resides in a 5.22 hr binary, orbiting a low-mass companion donor with M d > 0.1 M ⊙ . We report on the temporal and spectral properties from NICER observations during the early days of the outburst, from 2024 February 21 through 2024 February 23, during which NICER also detected a type I X-ray burst that exhibited a plateau lasting ∼6 s. The spectra of the persistent emission were well described by an absorbed thermal blackbody and power-law model, with blackbody temperature kT ≈ 0.9 keV and power-law photon index Γ ≈ 1.9. Time-resolved burst spectroscopy confirmed the thermonuclear nature of the burst, where an additional blackbody component reached a maximum temperature of nearly kT ≈ 3 keV at the peak of the burst. We discuss the nature of the companion as well as the type I X-ray burst.