XMM-Newton discovery of transient 285.4 s X-ray pulsar XMMU J013359.5+303634 in M33

Sergey Trudolyubov

Published 2012-09-13, updated 2013-08-13Version 2

I report on the discovery and analysis of the first transient X-ray pulsar detected in the Local Group galaxy M33. The 2010 July-August deep XMM-Newton observations of M33 fields revealed a new bright X-ray source XMMU J013359.5+303634 exhibiting pulsations with a period P~285.4 s and pulsed fraction ~47 per cent in the 0.3-10 keV energy range. The pulse phase averaged spectrum of XMMU J013359.5+303634 is typical of X-ray pulsars and can be fit with an absorbed simple power law model of photon index Gamma~1.2 in the 0.3-10 keV energy band. The search for an optical counterpart did not yield any stellar object brighter than 20 mag, suggesting that XMMU J013359.5+303634 is not a Galactic foreground object and almost certainly belongs to M33. Assuming the distance of 817 kpc, the maximum observed luminosity of the source in the 0.3-10 keV energy range is ~1.4e37 ergs/s, at least 20 times higher than quiescent luminosity. The brightest optical object inside the error circle of XMMU J013359.5+303634 has a visual magnitude of 20.9 and properties consistent with being an early B V star when placed at a distance of M33. Based on the X-ray pulsations and spectrum, transient behavior and possible early B class optical counterpart, XMMU J013359.5+303634 can be classified as another extragalactic Be/X-ray binary candidate.