Study of Complex Absorption and Reflection in a Unique Intermediate Polar Paloma

Abstract

Abstract We present the broadband (0.3–40.0 keV) X-ray analysis of a unique intermediate polar Paloma using simultaneous data from XMM-Newton and NuSTAR observatories. The X-ray power spectra show strong modulations over orbital period compared to spin period. The orbit-folded light curves show a single broad hump-like structure with strong dips for soft to medium X-rays (0.3–10.0 keV). The energy-dependent dips at ϕ ∼ 0.16 and 0.5 arise as a result of a complex intrinsic absorber, strong enough to have an effect around 15 keV. The absorber could potentially be contributed from accretion curtain/accretion stream and absorbing material produced by stream–disk/stream–magnetosphere interactions. We notice significant variation of the absorber with orbital phase, with maximum absorption during orbital phase 0.1–0.22. The absorber requires more than one partial covering absorber component, specifying the necessity to use distribution of column densities for spectral modeling of the source. The isobaric cooling flow component is utilized to model the emission from the multitemperature post-shock region, giving a shock temperature of 31.7 − 3.5 + 3.3 keV, which corresponds to a white dwarf mass of 0.74 − 0.05 + 0.04 M ⊙ . We have used both the neutral absorber and warm absorber models, which statistically give a similarly good fit, but with different physical implications. Among the Fe Kα line complex, the neutral line is the weakest. We probed the Compton reflection and found a minimal statistical contribution in the spectral fitting, suggesting the presence of weak reflection in Paloma.