Variable absorption line in XTE J1810-197

Abstract

We report the results of a long-term spectral and timing study of the first transient magnetar, XTE J1810-197 which was discovered in 2003, when its X-ray luminosity increased ≈ 100 fold. We fit X-ray spectra of all archival X-ray observations using a two-component blackbody model, where the cool component is most likely originating from the whole surface of the neutron star and the hot component is from a much smaller hot spot. We investigate the long-term evolution of the surface emission characteristics via tracing its surface temperature, apparent emitting area and pulsed fraction. We evaluate the pulsed fraction in two energy intervals (< 1.5 keV and > 1.5 keV) and show that the XTE J1810-197 exhibits slightly higher pulsed emission at energies above 1.5 keV. We explore the characteristics of an absorption line detected around 1.1 keV. We find that the absorption feature is highly variable and its profile is asymmetric. To accurately represent this feature, we introduced an asymmetric Gaussian profile, and quantified the level of asymmetry of the absorption feature. © 2018 Elsevier B.V.