SS433 is well-known for its precessing twin jets having optical bullets inferred through spectroscopic observation of H α lines. Recently, Chakrabarti et al. (2002) described processes which may be operating in accretion disk of SS433 to produce these bullets. In a recent multi-wavelength campaign, we find sharp rise in intensity in time-scales of few minutes in X-rays, IR and radio waves through photometric studies. We interpret them to be possible evidence of ejection of bullet-like features from accretion disks.
Apart from regular monitoring with the All Sky Monitor, the compact object SS 433 was observed with RXTE several times over the last 2 or 3 yr. We present the first analysis of these observations. We also include the results of the recent exciting Target of Opportunity campaign made during donor inferior (orbital phase φ= 0) and superior (φ= 0.5) conjunctions which took place on 2003 October 2 and 2004 March 13, respectively, when the jet was directly pointing towards us (i.e. precessional phase ψ∼ 0). Generally, we found that two distinct lines fit the spectra taken on these days. We present some of the light curves and the X‐ray spectra, and show that the Doppler shifts of the emitted lines roughly match those predicted by the kinematic model for the jets. We find that the line with a higher energy can be best identified with a Fe xxvi Lyman‐α transition while the line with lower energy can be identified with a Fe xxv (1s2p–1s2) transition. We observe that the X‐ray flux on 2004 March 13 (when the base of the jet was exposed) is more than twice that on 2003 October 2 (when the base is covered by the companion). We find that the flux continues to remain high at least until another orbital period. We believe that this is because SS 433 was undergoing a weak flaring activity during the recent observation.
We conducted a multiwavelength campaign in 2002 September–October, to observe SS 433. We used the Giant Meter Radio Telescope for radio observations, the Physical Research Laboratory Infrared Telescope at Mt Abu for infrared (IR), the ARIES telescope at Nainital for optical photometry, the telescope at the Vainu Bappu observatory for spectral measurements and the Rossi X‐ray Timing Explorer for X‐ray observations. We find sharp variations in intensity on time‐scales of a few minutes in the X‐ray, IR and radio wavelengths. Differential photometry in the IR observations clearly indicates significant intrinsic variations on short time‐scales of minutes throughout the campaign. Combining the results for these wavelengths, we find a signature of delay of about two days between the IR and radio signals. The X‐ray spectrum yielded double Fe line profiles which corresponded to red and blue components of the relativistic jet. We also present the broad‐band spectrum averaged over the campaign duration.
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