Effect of pulse profile variations on measurement of eccentricity in orbits of Cen X-3 and SMC X-1

TL;DR

This study uses RXTE data of Cen X-3 and SMC X-1 to measure orbital eccentricity and periastron angle, revealing that pulse profile variations, not timing precision, limit measurement accuracy.

Contribution

It demonstrates that pulse profile variations, rather than instrumental precision, constrain the measurement of small orbital eccentricities in high mass X-ray binaries.

Findings

Pulse profile variations limit measurement accuracy.

Eccentricity and periastron angle successfully measured in SMC X-1.

Timing precision alone is insufficient for small eccentricity detection.

Abstract

It has long been argued that better timing precision allowed by satelites like Rossi X-ray Timing Experiments (RXTE) will allow us to measure the orbital eccentricity and the angle of periastron of some of the bright persistent high mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) and hence a possible measurement of apsidal motion in these system. Measuring the rate of apsidal motion allows one to estimate the apsidal motion constant of the mass losing companion star and hence allows for the direct testing of the stellar structure models for these giant stars present in the HMXBs. In the present paper we use the archival RXTE data of two bright persistent sources, namely Cen X-3 and SMC X-1, to measure the very small orbital eccentricity and the angle of periastron. We find that the small variations in the pulse profiles of these sources rather than the intrinsic timing accuracy provided by RXTE, limit the accuracy with which we can measure arrival time of the pulses from these sources. This influences the accuracy with which one can measure the orbital parameters, especially the very small eccentricity and the angle of periastron in these sources. The observations of SMC X-1 in the year 2000 were taken during the high flux state of the source and we could determine the orbital eccentricity and $\omega$ using this data set.