A Thorough Look at the Photoionized Wind and Absorption Dips in the Cygnus X-1 / HDE 226868 X-ray Binary System

Abstract

We present results from simultaneous observations of the high-mass X-ray binary system Cygnus X-1 / HDE 226868 with Suzaku, Chandra-HETGS, XMM-Newton, RXTE, INTEGRAL, and Swift in 2008 April. Performed shortly after orbital phase 0, when our line of sight to the black hole passes through the densest part of the O-star's wind, these obervations show common transient absorption dips in the soft X-ray band. For the first time, however, we detect a simultaneous scattering trough in the hard X-ray light curves. The more neutral clump is thus only the core of a larger ionized blob, which contains a significant fraction of the total wind mass. The diluted wind outside of these clumps is almost completely photoionized.

2 pages, 4 figures; proceedings of the 3rd Suzaku Conference "The Energetic Cosmos: From Suzaku to Astro-H"