Swift continues to monitor GK Per during the current outburst
ATel #7276; Polina Zemko (University of Padua, Italy), Philip A Evans (University of Leicester, UK) and Marina Orio (INAF Padova, Italy and University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA)
on 23 Mar 2015; 13:50 UT
Credential Certification: Polina Zemko (polina.zemko@studenti.unipd.it)
Subjects: X-ray, Binary, Cataclysmic Variable, Nova, Transient, Variables
Referred to by ATel #: 7404
Swift is continuing to monitor GK Per (see ATEL #7248) in its current dwarf nova outburst twice a day. The Swift-XRT count rate on March 23 2015 was 1.06+\-0.12 cnts/s. While according to the AAVSO, GK Per is still becoming brighter in optical, the X-ray count rate in the 0.3-10.0 keV range does not show any significant increase since the beginning of the outburst.
The X-ray spectrum can be still fitted with a blackbody at temperature in the range 50-80 eV and a thermal plasma that is highly absorbed by two partially covering absorbers.
Zemko and Orio would also like to announce an "errata corrige" for ATEL#7248. The published Swift-XRT count rate was not corrected for pile-up. After pile-up correction, the count rate on days 12 - 19 March 2015 results to vary in the range
0.94 - 2.10 cnts/s.