SS 433 in the ultraviolet.
Dolan, J. F.; Boyd, P. T.; Fabrika, S.; Tapia, S.; Bychkov, V.; Panferov, A. A.; Nelson, M. J.; Percival, J. W.; van Citters, G. W.; Taylor, D. C.; Taylor, M. J.
Abstract
The High Speed Photometer (HSP) on the Hubble Space Telescope observed SS 433 at 15 different epochs between 1993 May and November. Polarimetric observations were obtained in a 340Å FWHM bandpass centered at 2770Å; photometric observations were made in a bandpass extending between 1400 and 3000Å. The polarization in the UV is both large (
=13+/-4%) and variable. Observations at the 6-m telescope of the Special Astrophysical Observatory find the polarization in the U band to be intermediate in magnitude between that in the V band and that we detect in the UV. These results are best explained by the existence of a Rayleigh scattering component in the polarized radiation. Less than 1.2% of the flux from SS 433 between 1400 and 3000Å is modulated with a period between 200μs and 100s at 164-d phase ψ=0.131, when the two sets of emission lines in the SS 433 spectrum have a local maximum in the separation of their redshifts.