Hard x-ray pulsations in Gx 1+4

Abstract

The x-ray pulsar GX 1+4 was observed by us in four balloon- borne experiments carried out from Hyderabad, India during 1991-1995 period with a hard x-ray telescope. The x-ray telescope consists of two collimated large area xenon-filled proportional counters with an effective area of 2400 cm², a field of view of 5×5 and sensitive in the energy band of 20 - 100 keV. The pulsar was detected in bright state in two of the four experiments and x-ray pulsations with 120 second period were detected clearly. Pulsation period, rate of change of period with time, pulse fraction, pulse profile and energy spectra of the source were determined from these studies. During March 1995 observation, the x-ray pulse of GX 1+4 was found to be double-peaked compared to a single-peak pulse profile detected in December 1993. Details of these results are presented and their interpretation discussed in terms of the current accretion models of x-ray binaries.