[Previous] | [Session 26] | [Next]
H.L. Marshall, N.S. Schulz, D. Dewey, C.R. Canizares (MIT CSR)
SS 433 was observed with the Chandra High Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer (HETGS) at a phase of SS 433's precessional period where the red- and blue-shifted jets have near maximimal separation. The HETGS provides spectra at 0.005 Å\ resolution (high energy grating, or HEG) and 0.010 Å\ resolution (medium energy grating, or MEG) simultaneously over a bandpass from about 0.8-10 keV (HEG) and 0.3-10 keV (MEG). Both MEG and HEG spectra show many emission lines from the blue jet and quite a number from the red jet as well.
The lines are almost entirely due to highly ionized species of heavy elements: H- and He-like ions of Ne, Na, Mg, Si, S, Ar, Ca, and Fe, many of which were detected in previous X-ray spectra obtained obtained with ASCA (cf. Kotani, et al. 1996, PASJ, 48, 619). Many of the lines are easily resolved by the HETGS, giving full widths at half maxima of order 2-10,000 km/s. We will comment on the kinematic model of the jet, based on accurate measures of the line shifts as well as the thermal nature of the X-ray emission based on models of the line flux ratios.
This work is supported in part by NASA contract NAS8-38249 and by contract SAO SV1-61010.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: mailto: hermanm@space.mit.edu