First detection of X-ray polarization in thermal state of LMC X-3: Spectro-polarimetric study with IXPE

Abstract

We report a comprehensive spectro-polarimetric study of the black hole binary LMC X$-3$ using simultaneous {\it IXPE}, {\it NICER} and {\it NuSTAR} observations in 0.5$-$20 keV energy band. The broad-band energy spectrum (0.5$-$20 keV) with {\it NICER} and {\it NuSTAR} is well described by the disc emission of temperature $\sim$1.1 keV and a weak Comptonizing tail beyond $\sim$10 keV. This evidently suggests a disc-dominated spectral state of the source with disc contribution of $\sim$96\%. The lack of variability ($rms$$\sim$0.5\%) in the power spectrum further corroborates the high/soft nature of the source. A significant polarization degree (PD) of 3.04$\pm$0.40\% (>7$\sigma$) at a polarization angle (PA) of $-$44.24$^{\circ}$$\pm$3.77$^{\circ}$ (>7$\sigma$) is found in 2$-$8 keV energy range of {\it IXPE}. In addition, PD is seen to increase with energy up to $\sim$4.35$\pm$0.98\% (>3$\sigma$) in 4$-$8 keV band. Further, we attempt to constrain the source spin ($a_{*}$) using broad-band spectral modelling that indicates a weakly rotating `hole' in LMC X$-3$ with $a_{*}=0.273_{-0.012}^{+0.011}-0.295_{-0.021}^{+0.008}$ ($90\%$ confidence). Based on the spectro-polarimetric results, we infer that the polarization in LMC X$-3$ is resulted possibly due to the combined effects of the direct and/or reflected emissions from a partially ionized disc atmosphere. Finally, we discuss the relevance of our findings.