An Observation of the Intermediate Polar XY Arietis with Chandra

Abstract

Chandra serendipitously observed the eclipsing (80 deg < i < 84 deg) intermediate polar, XY Arietis (=H0253+193), in two separate but continuous observations five weeks apart. XY Ari was in a quiescent state during both observations. We pursue the study of phase-resolved spectra for this system focusing on the Fe K lines. From the combined and separate data sets, we readily detect emission lines of iron near 6.4, 6.7, and 6.9 keV at better than 99% significance in contrast to previous results. We confirm the orbit-phased sinusoidal absorption column behavior first observed with Ginga as well as a sinusoid-like behavior as a function of spin phase. The presence of the 6.4, 6.7, and 6.9 keV lines requires different ionization states with xi <2 (6.4 keV) and xi \sim$3.5-4 (6.7 and 6.9 keV) that must vary with phase. We also detect emission lines at 3.25, 4.8, and 5.4 keV that are not instrumental in origin. The 4.8 keV line may be identified as Ca XIX (4.832 keV) and the 3.25 keV line may be Ar I K, but the 5.4 keV line has no obvious identification.

17 pages, 8 figs, accepted AJ, scheduled September

References in corpus (6)

• Sherpa: a Mission-Independent Data Analysis Application
• Two Types of X-ray Spectra in Cataclysmic Variables
• Detection of a Fully-resolved Compton Shoulder of the Iron K-alpha Line in the Chandra X-ray Spectrum of GX 301-2
• The Flight Spectral Response of the ACIS Instrument
• X-ray Spectroscopy of the IP PQ Gem
• K-band spectroscopy of the intermediate polar XY Ari

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