We report on an outburst of the high mass X-ray binary 4U 0115+634 with a pulse period of 3.6 s in 2008 March/April as observed with RXTE and INTEGRAL. During the outburst the neutron star's luminosity varied by a factor of 10 in the 3-50 keV band. In agreement with earlier work we find evidence of five cyclotron resonance scattering features at ∼10.7, 21.8, 35.5, 46.7, and 59.7 keV. Previous work had found an anticorrelation between the fundamental cyclotron line energy and the X-ray flux. We show that this apparent anticorrelation is probably due to the unphysical interplay of parameters of the cyclotron line with the continuum models used previously, e.g., the negative and positive exponent power law (NPEX). For this model, we show that cyclotron line modeling erroneously leads to describing part of the exponential cutoff and the continuum variability, and not the cyclotron lines. When the X-ray continuum is modeled with a simple exponentially cutoff power law modified by a Gaussian emission feature around 10 keV, the correlation between the line energy and the flux vanishes, and the line parameters remain virtually constant over the outburst. We therefore conclude that the previously reported anticorrelation is an artifact of the assumptions adopted in the modeling of the continuum.

We report new spectral modeling of the accreting X-ray pulsar Hercules X-1. Our radiation-dominated radiative shock model is an implementation of the analytic work of Becker & Wolff on Comptonized accretion flows onto magnetic neutron stars. We obtain a good fit to the spin-phase averaged 4 to 78 keV X-ray spectrum observed by the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array during a mainon phase of the Her X-1 35-day accretion disk precession period. This model allows us to estimate the accretion rate, the Comptonizing temperature of the radiating plasma, the radius of the magnetic polar cap, and the average scattering opacity parameters in the accretion column. This is in contrast to previous phenomenological models that characterized the shape of the X-ray spectrum but could not determine the physical parameters of the accretion flow. We describe the spectral fitting details and discuss the interpretation of the accretion flow physical parameters.

The RXTE observed four outbursts of the accreting X-ray binary transient source, GX 304−1 in 2010 and 2011. We present results of detailed 3−100 keV spectral analysis of 69 separate observations, and report a positive correlation between cyclotron line parameters, as well as other spectral parameters, with power law flux. The cyclotron line energy, width and depth versus flux, and thus luminosity, correlations show a flattening of the relationships with increasing luminosity, which are well described by quasi-spherical or disk accretion that yield the surface magnetic field to be ∼60 keV. Since HEXTE cluster A was fixed aligned with the PCA field of view and cluster B was fixed viewing a background region 1.5 degrees off of the source direction during these observations near the end of the RXTE mission, the cluster A background was estimated from cluster B events using HEXTEBACKEST. This made possible the detection of the ∼55 keV cyclotron line and an accurate measurement of the continuum. Correlations of all spectral parameters with the primary 2−10 keV power law flux reveal it to be the primary driver of the spectral shape. The accretion is found to be in the collisionless shock braking regime.

We present a spectral and timing analysis of International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL) observations of two high-mass X-ray binaries, 4U 1538−522 and 4U 1907+09. Our timing measurements for 4U 1538−522 find the pulse period to have exhibited a spin-up trend until approximately 2009, after which there is evidence for a torque reversal, with the source beginning to spin down to the most recently measured period of 525.407 ± 0.001 s. The most recent INTEGRAL observations of 4U 1907+09 are not found to yield statistically significant pulse periods due to the significantly lower flux from the source compared with 4U 1538−522. A spectral model consisting of a power-law continuum with an exponential cutoff and modified by two cyclotron resonance scattering features is found to fit both sources well, with the cyclotron scattering features detected at ∼22 and ∼49 keV for 4U 1538−522 and at ∼18 and ∼36 keV for 4U 1907+09. The spectral parameters of 4U 1538−522 are generally not found to vary significantly with flux and there is little to no variation across the torque reversal. Examining our results in conjunction with previous work, we find no evidence for a correlation between cyclotron line energy and luminosity for 4U 1538−522. 4U 1907+09 shows evidence for a positive correlation between cyclotron line energy and luminosity, which would make it the fourth, and lowest luminosity, cyclotron line source to exhibit this relationship.

keV) 21,760 cm2 Energy Resolution 85 -175 eV FWHM Time Resolution 100 ns Collimator 4 arcmin FWHM Background Rate 2.2 c/s Count Rate on Crab (0.2-10 keV) 148,000 Large Area Detector (LAD) Energy Range 2-30 keV Effective Area (cm^2 @ 10 keV) 51,000 cm2 Energy Resolution 200 -300 eV FWHM Time Resolution 10 µs Collimator 1° FWHM Count Rate on Crab (2-30 keV) 156,000 Background Rate 822 c/s (5 mcrab)