Abstract
Modelling the effect of absorption from the interstellar medium on transient black hole X-ray binaries
Highlights
Low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) are systems composed of a black hole (BH) or neutron star (NS), often called the primary, and a secondary low-mass donor star usually of mass 1.5 M
We fitted column densities of H, O, Ne and Fe, as these have the strongest effect on the shape of the soft X-ray absorption
We have presented an analysis of soft X-ray grating spectra from BH XRBs to estimate the amount of absorption affecting such sources
Summary
Low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) are systems composed of a black hole (BH) or neutron star (NS), often called the primary, and a secondary low-mass donor star usually of mass 1.5 M. The hard state is generally seen during quiescence or during the rise and decay of outbursts (Done et al 2007; Belloni 2010) It is characterized by the spectrum dominated by non-thermal (power-law) emission, which extends up to energies of around 100 keV, and a much weaker thermal component. In order to better study the X-ray emission spectra of BH XRBs, it would be useful to have both absorption models which account for both neutral and ionized species, accurate atomic data, and accurate column densities for each target source. We present an analysis of XMM–Newton data for a number of BH XRBs, attempt to assess the impact of a poor choice of absorption model and parameters on spectral analysis of such systems, and test the feasibility of using a single set of column densities for any given system regardless of the time of observation.
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