Study of the X-ray properties of the neutron star binary 4U 1728-34 from the soft-to-hard state

Abstract

We studied five XMM-Newton observations of the neutron star binary 4U 1728-34 covering the hard, intermediate and soft spectral states. By jointly fitting the spectra with several reflection models, we obtained an inclination angle of 25°-53° and an iron abundance up to 10 times the solar. From the fits with reflection models, we found that the fluxes of the reflection and the Comptonized components vary inconsistently; since the latter is assumed to be the illuminating source, this result possibly indicates the contribution of the neutron star surface/boundary layer to the disc reflection. As the source evolved from the relatively soft to the intermediate state, the disc inner radius decreased, opposite to the prediction of the standard accretion disc model. We also explore the possible reasons why the supersolar iron abundance is required by the data and found that this high value is probably caused by the absence of the hard photons in the XMM-Newton data.