Simultaneous BeppoSAX and Rossi X-ray timing explorer observations of 4U 1812–12

Abstract

4U1812-12 is a faint persistent and weakly variable neutron star X-ray binary. It was observed by BeppoSAX between April 20th and 21st, 2000 in a hard spectral state with a bolometric luminosity of ~2x10^36 ergs/s. Its broad band energy spectrum is characterized by the presence of a hard X-ray tail extending above ~100 keV. It can be represented as the sum of a dominant hard Comptonized component (electron temperature of ~36 keV and optical depth ~3) and a weak soft component. The latter component which can be fitted with a blackbody of about 0.6 keV and equivalent radius of ~2 km is likely to originate from the neutron star surface. We also report on the first measurement of the power density spectrum of the source rapid X-ray variability, as recorded during a simultaneous snapshot observation performed by the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer. As expected for a neutron star system in such hard spectral state, its power density spectrum is characterized by the presence of a ~0.7 Hz low frequency quasi-periodic oscillation together with three broad noise components, one of which extends above ~200 Hz.