Narrow iron and nickel K absorption lines from the eclipsing low-mass X-ray binary AX J1745.6-2901

Abstract We report the presence of a highly ionized absorber in the transient, eclipsing low-mass X-ray binary AX J1745.6-2901, observed from 2024 February 26–29 with XRISM’s Resolve and Xtend instruments. During a soft/high state without dips, Resolve’s high spectral resolution ($E/\Delta E \sim 1000$, full width at half-maximum) revealed narrow velocity widths ($\sigma \sim 110~{\rm km~s^{-1}}$) for Fe xxvi and Ni xxviii lines, even with low photon statistics. These widths are consistent with binary orbital motion. The observed modest blueshift velocity (${\sim }160~{\rm km~s^{-1}}$) indicates that the absorber is located sufficiently far from the neutron star (${>}10^9$ cm), so that gravitational redshift effects are not dominant. On the other hand, broad-band spectral analysis using a photoionized plasma model applied to the Xtend data constrains the absorber to lie within a radius of ${\lesssim }10^{9.5}$ cm, as inferred from the upper limits of the best-fitting ionization parameter ($\log \xi \sim 4.4$) and the large column density (${\sim }1.6\times 10^{24}~{\rm cm^{-2}}$). At this distance, the observed outward velocity of the absorber is about an order of magnitude smaller than the escape velocity from the neutron star.