Iron line and soft excess properties of GX301-2 at different orbital
phases
S. Del Sordo, A. Santangelo, A. Segreto
M. Orlandini, D. Dal Fiume
A. Parmar, T. Oosterbroek
Abstract
The high mass X-ray binary pulsar GX301-2 was the target of a campaign of
observations with the Italian-Dutch satellite BeppoSAX.
The source was observed at six different orbital phases in order to monitor
its spectral and timing behaviour along the 41 days orbit. The pulse averaged
spectrum
is very complex and rich in features. Here we mainly discuss the low energy part
(0.4 - 10 keV) of the spectrum and, in particular, the large variability
observed in the
iron line and in the soft energy excess, along the orbital period.
The detection of pulsations at low energy (below 3 keV) seems to be in contrast
with the scattering model used until now to explain the soft excess.
We also made a comparison with the results of an ASCA observation of this
source.
File translated from TEX by TTH, version 2.32.
On 16 Jul 1999, 09:19.