ART-P/GRANAT observations of the X-ray source KS 1731-260

The results of observations of the transient X-ray burster KS 1731-260 with the ART-P telescope onboard the GRANAT observatory are presented. The observations were performed in 1990–1991 at the initial stage of the source’s 12-yr activity period when no studies were conducted by other X-ray observatories. The flux from KS 1731-260 is shown to have systematically decreased, forming a separate initial “minioutburst” of the source with a duration of ～2.5 yr. The decrease in flux was accompanied by an increase in the spectral hardness of KS 1731-260 and an enhancement of its burst activity; two X-ray bursts were detected in the last observing sessions when the flux decreased by 40–60%. Their analysis showed that they occurred in a medium with an appreciable hydrogen abundance; i.e., the enrichment efficiency of the material in the lower atmospheric layers of the neutron star during quasi-steady hydrogen burning was low. The BDLE model that was suggested by Grebenev et al. (2006) to describe the radiation spectra of weakly magnetized accreting neutron stars has been used for the first time to analyze the continuum radiation spectrum of the source. This model incorporates two spectral components associated with the radiation from the boundary layer formed at the place of contact between the accretion disk and the neutron star surface and with the radiation from the accretion disk proper. The model satisfactorily fits the observed radiation spectra of the source and allow such parameters of the binary system as the accretion disk inclination, the bolometric luminosity (accretion rate), and the temperature of the outer boundary layer to be estimated. The boundary layer radiation for KS 1731-260 is shown to have originated in an exponential atmosphere of moderate optical depth for Thomson scattering under conditions where comptonization had no time to form the Wien spectrum, but only modified the thermal plasma radiation spectrum.