A spatially resolved limb flare on Algol B observed with XMM-Newton

Abstract

We report XMM-Newton observations of the eclipsing binary Algol A (B8V) and B (K2III). The XMM-Newton data cover the phase interval 0.35-0.58, i.e., specifically the time of optical secondary minimum, when the X-ray dark B-type star occults a major fraction of the X-ray bright K-type star. During the eclipse a flare was observed with complete light curve coverage. The decay part of the flare can be well described with an exponential decay law allowing a rectification of the light curve and a reconstruction of the flaring plasma region. The flare occurred near the limb of Algol B at a height of about 0.1 R_* with plasma densities of a few times 10¹¹ cm^-3 consistent with spectroscopic density estimates. No eclipse of the quiescent X-ray emission is observed leading us to the conclusion that the overall coronal filling factor of Algol B is small.