Broad-band Spectral Properties of Accreting X-ray Binary Pulsars

Broad-band spectra of accreting X-ray binary pulsars can be fit by a phenomenological model composed by a power law with a high energy rollover above 10 keV, plus a blackbody component with a temperature of few hundred eV. While, at least qualitatively, the hard tail can be explained in terms of (inverse) Compton scattering, the origin of the soft component cannot find a unique explanation. Recently a qualitative picture able to explain the overall broad band-spectrum of luminous X-ray pulsars was carried out by taking into account the effect of bulk Comptonization in the accretion column. After a review on these recent theoretical developments, I will present a case study of how different modelization of the continuum affect broad features, in particular the cyclotron resonance features in Vela X-1.
Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures; to appear in the Proceedings of COSPAR Colloquium "Spectra & Timing of Compact X-ray Binaries," January 17-20, 2005, Mumbai, India