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We study the temporal and spectral characteristics of SMC X-3 during its 2016outburst. To probe accretion onto highly magnetized neutron stars (NSs), at theEddington limit. We obtained XMM-Newton observations of SMC X-3 and combinedthem with long-term observations by Swift. We studied the temporal and spectralbehavior of the source, and its short- and long-term evolution. We constructeda simple toy-model to gain insight into the complex emission pattern of SMCX-3. We confirm the pulse period of the system, derived by previous works andnote that the pulse has a complex, three peaked shape. We find that the pulsedemission is dominated by hard photons, while at energies below ~1 keV, theemission is virtually non-pulsating. We further find that the shape of thepulse profile and the short and long-term evolution of the source light-curvecan be explained by invoking a combination of a "fan" and a "polar" beam. Ourspectroscopic analysis, reveals a two-component emission: a hard power law anda soft thermal component. We find that the latter produces the bulk of thenon-pulsating emission and is most likely the result of reprocessing of theprimary hard emission, by optically thick material that partially obscures thecentral source. We also detect strong emission lines from highly ionizedmetals. The strength of the emission lines are strongly phase-depended. Theenergy and temporal evolution and the shape of the pulse profile and thelong-term spectra evolution of the source are consistent with the expectedemission pattern of the accretion column in the super-critical regime, whilethe presence of a large reprocessing region is consistent with the analysis ofpreviously studied X-ray pulsars observed at high accretion rates. The presenceof this region is consistent with recently proposed works that suggest thathigh-B NSs occupy a considerable fraction of ULXs.

Accreting, highly magnetized neutron stars at the Eddington limit: A study of the 2016 outburst of SMC X-3