1. A relativistic iron emission line from the neutron star low-mass X-ray binary GX 3+1.
- Author
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Piraino, S., Santangelo, A., Kaaret, P., Mück, B., D'Ai, A., Di Salvo, T., Iaria, R., Robba, N., Burderi, L., and Egron, E.
- Subjects
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X-ray binaries , *BINARY stars , *X-ray astronomy , *NEUTRON stars , *COMPACT objects (Astronomy) - Abstract
We present the results of a spectroscopic study of the Fe Kα emission of the persistent neutron-Star atoll low-mass X-ray binary and type TX-ray burster GX 3+1 with the EPIC-PN on board XMM-Newton. The source shows a flux modulation over several years and we observed it during its fainter phase, which corresponds to an X-ray luminosity of Lx -∼ 1037 erg s-1. When fitted with a two-component model, the X-ray spectrum shows broad residuals at -6-7 keV that can be ascribed to an iron K,, fluorescence line, in addition, lower energy features are observed at ∼ 3.3 key, ∼ 3.9 keV and might originate from Ar XVIII and Ca XIX. The broad iron line feature is well fitted with a relativistically smeared profile. This result is robust against possible systematics caused by instrumental pile-up effects. Assuming that the line is produced by reflection from the inner accretion disk, we infer an inner disk radius of ∼25Rg and a disk inclination of 35° < i< 44° [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2012
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