| Name: | Ajith Balu |
| Affiliation: | Raman Research Institute |
| Conference ID : | ASI2024_145 |
| Title : | Studying the X-ray reprocessing region of Centaurus X-3 using nearly fourteen years of MAXI/GSC data |
| Authors : | Ajith Balu 1, Kinjal Roy 1, Hemanth Manikantan 1, Abhisek Tamang 1, 2, Biswajit Paul 1 |
| Authors Affiliation: | 1 Ajith Balu, Kinjal Roy, Hemanth Manikantan, Abhisek Tamang, Biswajit Paul Affliation (Raman Research Institute, Bangalore - 560080, India)
2 Abhisek Tamang Affiliation (Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore - 560012, India) |
| Mode of Presentation: | Poster |
| Abstract Category : | High Energy Phenomena, Fundamental Physics and Astronomy |
| Abstract : | Centaurus X-3 is a persistent luminous wind-fed high-mass X-ray binary with the long-term light curve of the source exhibiting orbit-to-orbit intensity variations with no apparent periodicity. In the primary light curve analysis, we estimate the binary orbital period and find no apparent super-orbital periodicity, unlike previously reported. We use MAXI/GSC data of ∼ 13.5 years to study the long-term behaviour of X-ray absorption caused by the stellar wind using orbital phase-resolved spectroscopy and an intensity-resolved study of the same to investigate the long-term intensity variation. The phase-average spectrum was modelled using a partially absorbed power-law continuum with a Gaussian feature for the strong iron K-alpha fluorescent emission line. Orbital phase-resolved spectroscopy shows that a spherically symmetric wind model can well explain the long-term variation of photoelectric absorption with the orbital phase. We use MCMC to constrain the wind parameters for the optical companion of Cen X-3. Further, we divide the ∼ 13.5 years of MAXI/GSC data into three intensity states. The phase-averaged and phase-resolved spectra are extracted and analysed for each intensity state. We present the results from orbital intensity-resolved spectral analysis of the long-term Cen X-3 data. It is observed that the variation of photoelectric absorption for the lowest intensity state is inconsistent with the assumption of a spherically symmetric wind. The partial absorption column density for pre-eclipse is much higher than post-eclipse, suggesting an accretion wake following the trail of the neutron star for the lowest intensity state. |
