Detection of X-ray emission from a bright long-period radio transient.
Nature (2025)
Authors:
Ziteng Wang, Nanda Rea, Tong Bao, David L Kaplan, Emil Lenc, Zorawar Wadiasingh, Jeremy Hare, Andrew Zic, Akash Anumarlapudi, Apurba Bera, Paz Beniamini, AJ Cooper, Tracy E Clarke, Adam T Deller, JR Dawson, Marcin Glowacki, Natasha Hurley-Walker, SJ McSweeney, Emil J Polisensky, Wendy M Peters, George Younes, Keith W Bannister, Manisha Caleb, Kristen C Dage, Clancy W James, Mansi M Kasliwal, Viraj Karambelkar, Marcus E Lower, Kaya Mori, Stella Koch Ocker, Miguel Pérez-Torres, Hao Qiu, Kovi Rose, Ryan M Shannon, Rhianna Taub, Fayin Wang, Yuanming Wang, Zhenyin Zhao, ND Ramesh Bhat, Dougal Dobie, Laura N Driessen, Tara Murphy, Akhil Jaini, Xinping Deng, Joscha N Jahns-Schindler, YW Joshua Lee, Joshua Pritchard, John Tuthill, Nithyanandan Thyagarajan
Abstract:
Recently, a class of long-period radio transients (LPTs) has been discovered, exhibiting emission thousands of times longer than radio pulsars1-5. These findings, enabled by advances in wide-field radio surveys, challenge existing models of rotationally powered pulsars. Proposed models include highly magnetized neutron stars6, white-dwarf pulsars7 and white-dwarf binary systems with low-mass companions8. Although some models predict X-ray emission6,9, no LPTs have been detected in X-rays despite extensive searches1-5,10. Here we report the discovery of an extremely bright LPT (10-20 Jy in radio), ASKAP J1832-0911, which has coincident radio and X-ray emission, both with a 44.2-minute period. Its correlated and highly variable X-ray and radio luminosities, combined with other observational properties, are unlike any known Galactic object. The source could be an old magnetar or an ultra-magnetized white dwarf; however, both interpretations present theoretical challenges. This X-ray detection from an LPT reveals that these objects are more energetic than previously thought and establishes a class of hour-scale periodic X-ray transients with a luminosity of about 1033 erg s-1 linked to exceptionally bright coherent radio emission.
