AstroSat observations of the dipping low-mass X-ray binary XB 1254-690
Rao, A. R.; Misra, Ranjeev; Navale, Nilam R.; Pawar, Devraj; Chakraborty, Sudip; Bhattacharyya, Sudip; Bambole, Vaishali A.
India, France
Abstract
XB 1254-690 is a neutron star low-mass X-ray binary with an orbital period of 3.88 h, and it exhibits energy-dependent intensity dips, thermonuclear bursts, and flares. We present the results of an analysis of a long observation of this source using the AstroSat satellite. The X-ray light curve gradually changed from a high-intensity flaring state to a low-intensity one with a few dips. The hardness-intensity diagram showed that the source is in a high-intensity banana state with a gradually changing flux. Based on this, we divide the observation into four flux levels for a flux-resolved spectral study. The X-ray spectra can be explained by a model consisting of absorption, thermal emission from the disc, and non-thermal emission from the corona. From our studies, we detect a correlation between the temperature of the thermal component and the flux and we examine the implications of our results for the accretion disc geometry of this source.