Constraining distance and inclination angle of V4641 Sgr using SWIFT and NuSTAR observations during low soft spectral state

Abstract

We present results from NuSTAR and Swift/XRT joint spectral analysis of V4641 Sgr during a disk dominated or soft state, as well as a power law dominated or hard state. The soft state spectrum is well modeled by a relativistically blurred disk emission, a power law, a broad iron line, two narrow emission lines, and two edges. The Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulation technique and the relativistic effects seen in the disk and broad iron line allow us to self-consistently constrain the inner disk radius, disk inclination angle, and distance to the source at ${2.43}_{-0.17}^{+0.39}$Rg (GM/c2), ${69.5}_{-4.2}^{+12.8}$ degrees and ${10.8}_{-2.5}^{+1.6}$ kpc respectively. For the hard state, the spectrum is a power law with a weakly broad iron line and an edge. The distance estimate gives a measure of the Eddington fraction, ${L}_{2.0-80.0\;\mathrm{keV}}/{L}_{\mathrm{Edd}},$ to be ~1.3 × 10−2 and ~1.9 × 10−3 for the soft and hard states, respectively. Unlike many other typical black hole systems, which are always in a hard state at such a low Eddington fraction, V4641 Sgr shows a soft, disk dominated state. The soft state spectrum shows narrow emission lines at ~6.95 and ~8.31 keV which can be identified as being due to emission from highly ionized iron and nickel in an X-ray irradiated wind respectively. If this is not due to instrumental effect or calibration error, this would be the first detection of a Ni fluorescent line in a black hole X-ray binary.

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