MULTI-WAVELENGTH STUDIES OF X-RAY BINARY SYSTEMS THESIS Submitted for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (PHYSICS) to KUMAUN UNIVERSITY, NAINITAL by Ramanpreet Kaur Aryabhatta Research Institute of observational sciencES (ARIES) Manora Peak, Nainital 263 129, India April 2009 i DECLARATION I hereby declare that the work presented in this thesis is a result of the investigation car- ried out by me at the Aryabhatta Research Institute of observational sciencES (ARIES), Nainital, under the supervision of Prof. Ram Sagar (Aryabhatta Research Institute of ob- servational sciencES, Nainital). This thesis has not been submitted before for the award of any degree, diploma, associateship or fellowship of any University or Institute. Place : Nainital Date : (Ramanpreet Kaur) ii CERTIFICATE FROM THE SUPERVISOR This is to certify that 1. The synopsis of the thesis entitled “Multi-wavelength studies of X-ray binary systems” for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Physics was ap- proved by the Kumaun University, Nainital. 2. This thesis embodies the work of Mrs Ramanpreet Kaur herself. 3. Mrs Ramanpreet Kaur worked under my supervision for this thesis as a Research Fellow at the Aryabhatta Research Institute of observational sciencES (ARIES), Nainital. She has put in more than 200 days of attendance at ARIES, Nainital during this period. 4. This thesis has not been submitted before for the award of any degree, diploma, associateship or fellowship of any University or Institute. Ram Sagar Place: Nainital ARIES Date: Nainital - 263 129 iii To, My family iv Acknowledgments During the slow and often interrupted evolution of this thesis I have accumulated many debts, only a portion of which I have space to acknowledge here. I owe a sincere thanks to my thesis supervisor Prof. Ram Sagar for his expert guidance and constant support. I highly acknowledge the freedom he gave me to work on research problems of my interest and his encouragements to make new collaborations in India as well as abroad. I express my sincere thanks to Biwsajit for his expert guidance throughout my PhD. His enthusiasm towards research always inspired me to enjoy every bit of my re- search work and gave me the courage to finish things before time. I am thankful to him for his collaboration and looking forward to many years of collaborations with him in future too. I would like to acknowledge the debt I owe to my collaborator Brijesh Kumar for making me acquainted with the optical data reduction techniques, scientific discussions and help in the thesis draft. I deeply acknowledge his encouragements and motivations throghout my PhD. Part of my research work presented in this thesis was carried out during my visit to the University of Amsterdam. Inspite of being it an unofficial visit from my home institute, Ralph, Michiel and Rudy helped me in all possible ways to continue my thesis work. I am deeply indebted to all of them. I am particularly grateful to Rudy for giving me an opportunity to work with him during my visit and making me a part of the XRT group. I am also thankful to him and Michiel for arranging finances for me to attend COSPAR in Montreal. My many thanks to Ale and Diego for their help and the scientific discussions we had during my visit. A number of friends in Amsterdam who made my visit comfortable and memorable one include Anna, Dipankar, Rachel, Manu, PG, Paolo, Nanda and Nathalie. It was nice to share an office with Prof. Wim Hermsen in UvA and I am thankful to him for all the discussions we had during my visit. I am also thankful to Wim for his help getting my visa for Canada. I would like to acknowledge the necessary help provided by Eva, Minou and Lide during my visit. I owe my sincere thanks to Prof. Dipankar Bhattacharya who gave me the neces- sary enthusiasm and motivation to do research and to Sunita for her encouragements and constant support. I never felt home-sick at ARIES and for that I would like to thank my close friends Arti, Jessy, Neelam, Manash and Sanjeev. Thanks to all of you for all the scientific v and non-scientific discussions we had for all these years. I really enjoyed all the breakfast and dinner parties we had together in our hostel. I heartily acknowledge the comfort I felt sharing an office with Arti for all these years and also for her help regarding my stay in the new hostel during thesis writing. I feel proud to share a good friendship with the strongest ladies of our institute Jessy and Neelam and I am thankful to them for their timely help at various stages of my PhD. Many thanks to Manash for the scientific discussions and making the atmosphere always lively. The encouragements and support provided by Sanjeev is highly acknowledged. I am also thankful to Lijo and Vinod for their company and encouragements. A special thanks to Yugantika for her smiles which used to help me forget all my worries. It gives me an immense pleasure to thank my friends David and Camille for a long lasting friendship. I am also thankful to David for acquainting me with the optical observations and data reduction techniques. I am grateful to Nautiyal ji for making me feel at home during my PhD. Thanks to Sumana and Rupak for all the chicken parties and sharing a good friendship. Thanks to my batch-mates Himali, Amitava, Prashant, Saurav for their company and constant support. I would like to express my thanks to Surjit Das, Srivastava ji, Giancarlo, Prashant Hegde, Kumar and Samresh for their com- pany. I am grateful to my seniors Kuntal, Saurabh, Dumka, Bhuwan, Jeewan, Shashi, Santosh, Biman, Tejbir for their guidance and encouragements. Thanks to my friends Es- hwar, Rajesh, Pankaj, Akash, Narendra, Bindu, Ram Kesh, Brajesh, Chhavi, Chrisphin, Haritma, Tapaswini, Hema, Devesh, Giridhar, Kishore for their help and making the at- mosphere always lively. I would like to acknowledge the help I recieved from my friends Neha, Kalyan, Ravi, Rupak, Iswar and Pankaj in thesis draft and accompanying me to the University for the thesis submission related trips. I would like to express my thanks to Pandey Sir, Alok Gupta, Hum Chand, In- dranil, Ramakant, Snehlata and Sanwal Sir for the scientific discussions and motivations. I am thankful to Soman Mondal for introducing me to the infrared data reduction tech- niques. Thanks to Amitesh and Manish for their help in various academic matters. I would like to acknowledge the help from the technical staff of our telescope at ARIES during observations, library and the computer staff (Rajesh Kumar, Bhat Ji, Giri Ji, Pant ji, Nitin, Sanjit, Purushottam, Dheeraj and Navin ji) for their help throughout my PhD. Administrative staff (particularly Jhinghan Sir, Abhishek and Hansa madam) of ARIES is highly acknowledged for providing me necessary support during my research work. During my PhD I made many visits to Raman Research Institute. I am thankful to everybody on astro-floor of RRI for the scientific discussions and encouragements. vi I am very grateful to my RRI friends Ruta, Mamta, Kshitij, Wasim, Yogesh, Poonam, Kanhaiya, Peeyush, Nishant, Chetana, Rabai, Csg, Maushmi, Tripta and Ravi Shankar for their help and company during my visits. Thanks to Vidya, RRI library and administrative staff for providing me necessary help during my visits. This thesis would not have been possible without a constant support from Atish. I am thankful to him for his confidence in me which always helped me to tackle every difficult problem in my scientific and personal life. His encouragements, motivations and patience always helped me moving on with my research work. It is not possible to give a long list of help I received from him during my PhD but I would definitely like to thank him for his life long friendship and love. Most of all, I would like to thank my parents for providing me with the op- portunity to be where I am. Without them, none of this would even be possible. They have always given me the strength and wisdom to be sincere in my work, for setting high moral standards and supporting me through their hard work and for their unselfish love and affection. Many thanks to my brothers ‘Ginny & Binny’ for their confidence in me and standing by me in all difficult situations. I wish to express my sincere thanks to my in-laws for their constant encouragement and support to continue my carrier in research. And finally I am thankful to ‘Waheguru’ for making this volume a reality in my life. We succeed only as we identify in life, or in war, or in anything else, a single overriding objective, and make all other considerations bend to that one objective. - Dwight D. Eisenhower Ramanpreet Kaur 31 March 2009 vii List of Publications Publications in refereed journals 1. Quasi-periodic Oscillations in XTE J0111.2-7317: Highest Frequency among the HMXB Pulsars Ramanpreet Kaur, Biswajit Paul, Harsha Raichur, Ram Sagar ApJ, 660, 1409 (2007) 2. A study of the long term evolution of quasi periodic oscillations in the accretion powered X-ray pulsar 4U 1626-67 Ramanpreet Kaur, Biswajit Paul, Brijesh Kumar, Ram Sagar ApJ, 676, 1184 (2008) 3. Multiwavelength study of the transient X-ray binary IGR J01583+6713 Ramanpreet Kaur, Biswajit Paul, Brijesh Kumar, Ram Sagar MNRAS, 386, 2253 (2008) 4. Chandra and XMM-Newton observations of the low-luminosity X-ray pulsators SAX J1324.4-6200 and SAX J1452.8-5949 Ramanpreet Kaur, Rudy Wijnands, Alessandro Patruno, Vincenzo Testa, Gianluca Israel, Nathalie Degenaar, Biswajit Paul, Brijesh Kumar MNRAS, in press (2009) 5.