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Preprint 12a/99

HER X-1 X-RAY TURN-ON MONITORED BY RXTE

M. Kuster (1), J. Wilms (1), R. Staubert (1), D. E. Gruber (2), R. E. Rothschild (2), W. A. Heindl (2)

(1) Institut für Astronomie und Astrophysik, Astronomie, Universität Tübingen, Waldhäuser Str. 64, D-72076 Tübingen, Germany
(2) CASS, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, U.S.A.

To appear in: CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS X-ray Astronomy '99, published in Astrophysical Letters and Communications, 1999,

Abstract. We report on a two day long continuous monitoring of the X-ray binary Her X-1 by the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE). The observation resulted in a complete and highly time-resolved coverage of an X-ray turn-on in the energy range from 3 to 100 keV. The increase in flux from the off-state to the maximum level in the main on-state took almost two days. During these days a pre-eclipse dip, an anomalous dip, and an eclipse occured. The spectral modeling of the turn-on data showed, that N_H is increasing during the early phases of the turn-on. This is counterintuitive to a pure absorption model. In this paper we present a physically more realistic interpretation with a scattering model that is able to reproduce the measured data.

Key words: stars: neutron - stars: individual (Her X-1)

Paper (83k gzip'ed Postscript including figures)

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