GENERATION OF SPECTRAL AND TIMING PROPERTIES OF CYGNUS X-2 USING ASTROSAT’S DATA

Abstract

We present here AstroSat LAXPC and SXT observation of an X-ray Binary source focusing on neutron stars. X-ray binaries are a class of binary stars, so-called because they emit X-ray. These X-rays are produced by matter falling from one component called donor to another component, accretor. The donors are usually normal stars and accretor are collapsed stars which are very compact e.g. neutron stars, white dwarf or black hole. We have taken into study, Cygnus X-2, which is a 9.84 day period neutron star binary belonging to long-period lowmass X-ray binary type. It is one of the brightest and longest known X-ray source. Three observations are studied for which lightcurves are generated with time bin of 100s each for LAXPC and 23s each for SXT. Hardness ratios are plotted from the generated lightcurve. Spectra and power spectra are also generated within the energy range 4.0-80.0 keV for LAXPC and 0.3-8.0keV for SXT. Further analysis of these spectral and timing properties will be done. For timing analysis, Fourier transform is used and spectra will be fitted using ­2 fitting.