| Name: Hemanth M Affiliation: Raman Research Institute Conference ID: ASI2023_486 Title : Changes in the circum-binary environment of the accreting High mass X-ray binary pulsar GX 301-2 during its long spin-up episode Authors and Co-Authors : Hemanth M, Biswajit Paul, Kinjal Roy, Vikram Rana Abstract Type : Poster Abstract Category : Stars, ISM and Galaxy Abstract : Some of the accretion powered X-ray pulsars with supergiant companion stars undergo occasional rapid spin-up episodes that last for weeks to a few months. GX 301-2 exhibited such an 80 days long spin-up episode in 2019 when the spin frequency of the pulsar increased by about 2% over two orbits of the binary. By performing time-resolved and orbital phase-resolved spectroscopy with the MAXI/GSC spectra of the source, we studied the characteristics of the circum-binary environment of the X-ray pulsar during and outside the spin-up episode. We found that the circum-binary environment of the pulsar changed significantly during the spin-up episode, the details of which will be discussed in this talk. |