Timing and Spectral Studies of SRGA J144459.2−604207 with NICER, Einstein Probe, IXPE, NuSTAR, Insight-HXMT, and INTEGRAL During its 2024 Outburst

Abstract SRGA J144459.2−604207 is a newly confirmed accreting millisecond X-ray pulsar and type I X-ray burster. We present the broadband X-ray timing and spectral behaviors of SRGA J144459.2−604207 during its 2024 outburst. The data were collected from NICER, Einstein Probe, Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), Insight Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (Insight-HXMT), NuSTAR, and INTEGRAL observations. X-ray pulsations have been detected for the 1.5–90 keV energy range throughout the “ON” phase of the outburst from MJD ∼ 60355–60385. We refined the orbital and spin ephemerides assuming a circular orbit, and found that the pulsar was in a spin-up state during MJD ∼ 60361–60377 showing a significant spin-up rate <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mover accent="true"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>ν</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>̇</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> </mml:mover> </mml:math> of (3.15 ± 0.36) × 10 −13 Hz s −1 . Around MJD ∼ 60377 a swing was detected in the spin evolution accompanied by significantly enhanced pulsed emission. We studied the pulse-profile morphology during the X-ray bursts as observed by Insight-HXMT, IXPE, and NuSTAR. During the bursts, pulsations were detected across the 2–60 keV with shapes broadly consistent with those observed for the persistent emission. We found, however, that the “burst” pulse profiles exhibit significant phase offsets relative to the pre- and postburst profiles. These offsets systematically decrease with increasing energy, Δ ϕ ≈ 0.15, 0.11, and 0.02 for IXPE, Insight-HXMT ME, and HE in 2–8, 5–30, and 20–60 keV, respectively, and Δ ϕ ≈ 0.21, 0.10, and 0.07 for NuSTAR in 3–10, 20–35, and 35–60 keV, respectively, compared to the pre- and postburst profiles. We performed a joint spectral analysis of quasi-simultaneous NICER, NuSTAR, and Insight-HXMT data for two epochs. The resulting spectra from both observations were consistent and well described by an absorbed thermal Comptonization model, nthcomp , plus relativistic reflection, relxillCp .