Diagnostics of the black hole candidate SS433 with the RXTE

Abstract

We present our analysis of the extensive monitoring of SS433 by the RXTE observatory collected over the period 1996-2005. The difference between energy spectra taken at different precessional and orbital phases shows the presence of strong photoabsorption (N_H>10^{23}cm^{-2}) near the optical star, probably due to its powerful, dense wind. Therefore the size of the secondary deduced from analysis of X-ray orbital eclipses might be significantly larger than its Roche lobe size, which must be taken into account when evaluating the mass ratio from analysis of X-ray eclipses. Assuming that a precessing accretion disk is geometrically thick, we recover the temperature profile in the X-ray emitting jet that best fits the observed precessional variations in the X-ray emission temperature. The hottest visible part of the X-ray jet is located at a distance of l_0/a~0.06-0.09, or ~2-3*10^{11}cm from the central compact object, and has a temperature of about T_{max}~30 keV. We discovered appreciable orbital X-ray eclipses at the ``crossover'' precessional phases (jets are in the plane of the sky, disk is edge-on), which under model assumptions put a lower limit on the size of the optical component R/a>0.5 and an upper limit on a mass ratio of binary companions q=M_x/M_{opt}<0.3-0.35, if the X-ray opaque size of the star is not larger than 1.2R_{Roche, secondary}.

arXiv comment9 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics

References in corpus (12)

• Calibration of the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer Proportional Counter Array
• The High Resolution X-ray Spectrum of SS 433 using the Chandra HETGS
• INTEGRAL observations of SS433: Results of coordinated campaign
• Identification of the Mass Donor Star's Spectrum in SS 433
• Spectral Components of SS 433
• The Spectrum of the Mass Donor Star in SS 433
• Black-Hole Accretion Discs and Jets at Super-Eddington Luminosity
• Evidence for Jet Collimation in SS 433 with the Chandra HETGS
• On the Origin of the Absorption Features in SS433
• INTEGRAL observations of SS433, a supercritically accreting microquasar with hard spectrum
• Broad band variability of SS433: Accretion disk at work?
• X-ray Observation of SS 433 with RXTE

Cited by in corpus (19)

• Ultraluminous X-Ray Sources
• Spectroscopic Observations of the Mass Donor Star in SS 433
• Subaru and Gemini Observations of SS 433: New Constraint on the Mass of the Compact Object
• An Extended and More Sensitive Search for Periodicities in RXTE/ASM X-ray Light Curves
• On the Nature of the Compact Object in SS~433. Observational Evidence of X-ray Photon Index Saturation
• Evidences of the supercritical disc funnel radiation in X-ray spectra of SS 433
• SS433: a massive X-ray binary at advanced evolutionary stage
• INTEGRAL observations of SS433: system's parameters and nutation of supercritical accretion disk
• Monte-Carlo simulations of the broadband X-ray continuum of SS433
• Peculiar nature of hard X-ray eclipse in SS433 from INTEGRAL observations
• An upper limit on nickel overabundance in the supercritical accretion disk wind of SS 433 from X-ray spectroscopy
• Diagnostics of Parameters for the X-ray Jets of SS 433 from High-Resolution Chandra Spectroscopy
• X-ray variability of SS433: effects of the supercritical accretion disc
• Dynamical and radiative simulations of $\gamma$-ray jets in microquasars
• X-ray Variability of SS 433: Evidence for Supercritical Accretion
• Fast optical variability of SS 433
• Superbroad Component in Emission Lines of SS 433
• X-ray panorama of the SS433/W50 complex by SRG/eROSITA
• X-ray line formation in the spectrum of SS 433