Common patterns in pulse profiles of High Mass X-ray Binaries

Jaime Alsono-Hernandez, Felix Fuerst, Peter Kretschmar, Isabel Caballero, Amy Joyce

Published 2022-01-24Version 1

The pulsations of X-ray pulsars carry information about the accretion and magnetic field geometry. Here we present a study and classification of energy resolved pulse profiles of a sample of X-ray pulsars, focusing on high-mass X-ray binaries. Our goal is to perform a classification of X-ray pulsars based on their observed pulse profiles and look for correlations between this classification and their principle physical observables. The analysis pipeline is available online. We analysed the pulse profiles of a sample of X-ray pulsars using data obtained with the XMM-Newton and NuSTAR. We fit the energy resolved pulse profiles with a Fourier series of up to five harmonics. We investigate relationships between the pulse profile properties and other observables of the systems (e.g., orbital period, magnetic field strength, and luminosity) to study the extreme physics of these systems. The sources were divided into three groups by a classification based on the shape, the dominance of the fitted Fourier harmonics and their respective evolution with energy. We do not find a conclusive correlation between the pulse profile shapes or groups and other parameters of the systems. However, a weak trend was found when comparing our classification to the sources' location in the spin period-orbital period diagram. Further studies are required to confirm this trend. Despite the large variety of pulse profiles of the X-ray pulsars, we found that with our approach clear categories emerge which we use to classify their behavior as function of energy. As we do not find a clear relationship between our classification scheme and other parameters we conclude that X-ray pulse profiles are influenced by other hidden variables.