Eclipse and Collapse of the Colliding Wind X-ray Emission from Eta Carinae
Abstract
X-ray emission from the massive stellar binary system, η Carinae, drops strongly around periastron passage. We launched a focused observing campaign in early 2009 to understand the mechanism, which causes the X-ray minimum. During the campaign, hard X-ray emission (< 10 keV) from η Carinae declined as in the previous minimum, though it recovered a month earlier. Extremely hard X-ray emission between 15-25 keV, closely monitored for the first time with the Suzaku HXD/PIN, decreased similarly to the hard X-rays, but it reached minimum only after hard X-ray emission from the star had already began to recover. This indicates that the X-ray minimum is produced by two composite mechanisms: the thick primary wind first obscured the hard, 2-10 keV thermal X-ray emission from the wind-wind collision (WWC) plasma; the WWC activity then decays as the two stars reach periastron.
- Publication:
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Proceedings of a Scientific Meeting in Honor of Anthony F. J. Moffat
- Pub Date:
- December 2012
- Bibcode:
- 2012ASPC..465..325H