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ASCA Observations of SS 433
Author(s) -
KAWAI NOBUYUKI
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1995.tb17553.x
Subject(s) - precession , physics , astrophysics , jet (fluid) , luminosity , phase (matter) , x ray , kinetic energy , galaxy , astronomy , optics , quantum mechanics , thermodynamics
SUMMARY The X‐ray emission of SS 433 is considered to be generated in the vicinity of the base of the jet, at a distance probably two orders of magnitude or more smaller than the optical emission region 1 . It is therefore expected that the detailed study in X‐ray would reveal the clearer information of the “central monster” who creates the antiparallel pair of the relativistic precessing jets. With the high resolution spectroscopic capability of ASCA 2 , the thermal and dynamical properties of the X‐ray emission region of the jets is starting to be studied in detail. Here we present the diagnosis of the jet using the X‐ray emission lines observed in the early phase of the ASCA mission. The temperature at the base of the jet (∼ 10 keV ) and the kinetic luminosity (∼ 10 39 erg s −1 ) were derived. We also report the result of the recent contemporaneous spectroscopic observations of SS 433 in X‐ray and optical bands. The precession phase at the observation in October – November 1994 was significantly advanced compared with the prediction of the earlier model parameters 3 . It can be interpreted either as a result of random walk of the precession phase, or due to the secular decrease of the precession period.