Effect of pulse profile variations on measurement of eccentricity in orbits of Cen X-3 and SMC X-1
arXiv:0909.4271 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2009.15778.x
Abstract
It has long been argued that better timing precision allowed by satelites like Rossi X-ray Timing Experiments (RXTE) will allow us to measure the orbital eccentricity and the angle of periastron of some of the bright persistent high mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) and hence a possible measurement of apsidal motion in these system. Measuring the rate of apsidal motion allows one to estimate the apsidal motion constant of the mass losing companion star and hence allows for the direct testing of the stellar structure models for these giant stars present in the HMXBs. In the present paper we use the archival RXTE data of two bright persistent sources, namely Cen X-3 and SMC X-1, to measure the very small orbital eccentricity and the angle of periastron. We find that the small variations in the pulse profiles of these sources rather than the intrinsic timing accuracy provided by RXTE, limit the accuracy with which we can measure arrival time of the pulses from these sources. This influences the accuracy with which one can measure the orbital parameters, especially the very small eccentricity and the angle of periastron in these sources. The observations of SMC X-1 in the year 2000 were taken during the high flux state of the source and we could determine the orbital eccentricity and using this data set.
11 pages, 18 figures, to be published in MNRAS
References in corpus (3)
Cited by in corpus (29)
- The ephemeris, orbital decay, and masses of 10 eclipsing HMXBs
- The Ups & Downs of Accreting X-Ray Pulsars: Decade-long observations with the Fermi Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor
- A catalogue of high-mass X-ray binaries in the Galaxy: from the INTEGRAL to the Gaia era
- On the orbital parameters of Be/X-ray binaries in the Small Magellanic Cloud
- The X-ray polarimetry view of the accreting pulsar Cen X-3
- Microlensing of X-ray Pulsars: a Method to Detect Primordial Black Hole Dark Matter
- Timing and spectral studies of the transient X-ray pulsar GX 304-1 during an outburst
- X-ray reprocessing: Through the eclipse spectra of high mass X-ray binaries with XMM-Newton
- Probing the Masses and Radii of Donor Stars in Eclipsing X-ray Binaries with the Swift Burst Alert Telescope
- RXTE-PCA observations of 1A 1118--61: timing and spectral studies during an outburst
- Firm Detection of a Cyclotron Resonance Feature with Suzaku in the X-ray Spectrum of GRO J1008-57 during a Giant Outburst in 2012
- Orbital evolution and search for eccentricity and apsidal motion in the eclipsing HMXB 4U 1700-37
- Observing the transient pulsations of SMC X-1 with NuSTAR
- Is superorbital modulation in SMC X-1 caused by absorption in warped precessing accretion disc?
- Discovery of Two Cyclotron Resonance Scattering Features in X-ray Pulsar Cen X-3 by Insight-HXMT
- New measurements of the cyclotron line energy in Cen X-3
- Monitoring the Superorbital Period Variation and the Spin Period Evolution of SMC X-1
- Probing the polarized emission from SMC X-1: the brightest X-ray pulsar observed by IXPE
- Extending the baseline for SMC X-1's spin and orbital behavior with NuSTAR stray light
- A report on the type II X-ray burst from SMC X-1
- Neutron Stars in X-ray Binaries and their Environments
- Eclipse Timings of the LMXB XTE J1710-281 : Discovery of a third orbital period glitch
- X-ray emissions from magnetic polar regions of neutron stars
- A New Measurement of the Spin and Orbital Parameters of the High Mass X-ray Binary Centaurus X-3 using AstroSat
- Timing and spectral studies of Cen X-3 in multiple luminosity states using
- Variations in the X-ray eclipse transitions of Cen X-3
- XMM-Newton view of pulsating iron fluorescent emission from Centaurus X3
- The first X-ray spectrum of the HMXB XTE J1855-026 during the compact object eclipse
- Rapid Orbital Decay in the Ultracompact Double-degenerate Binary eRASSU J060839.5704014