NuSTAR observations of wind-fed X-ray pulsar GX 301-2 during unusual spin-up event
Armin has spent some time in Tuebingen this year, and myself in Turku, and here's one of the results in collaboration also with Moscow collegues. Great work Armin!
We report on NuSTAR observations of the well-known wind-accreting X-ray pulsar \source\ during a strong spin-up episode that took place in January-March 2019. A high luminosity of the source in a most recent observation allowed us to detect a positive correlation of the cyclotron line energy with luminosity. Beyond that, only minor differences in spectral and temporal properties of the source during the spin-up, presumably associated with the formation of a transient accretion disk, and the normal wind-fed state could be detected. We finally discuss conditions for the formation of the disk and possible reasons for lack of any appreciable variations in most of the observed source properties induced by the change of the accretion mechanism, and conclude that the bulk of the observed X-ray emission is still likely powered by direct accretion from the wind.