RXTE highlights of the 34.85-day cycle of Her X-1

An analysis of the publicly available Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer ( RXTE ) archive on Her X-1, including data on 23 34.85-d cycles, is performed. The turn-on times for these cycles are determined. The number of cycles with a duration of 20.5 orbits has been found to be much larger than the number of shorter (20 orbits) or longer (21 orbits) cycles. A correlation between the duration of a cycle and its mean X-ray flux is noted. The mean X-ray light curve shows a very distinct short on-state. The anomalous X-ray absorption dip is found during the first orbit, after the turn-on in the main on-state for the cycles starting near the binary phase 0.25, and is present during two successive orbits in the low on-state. The post-eclipse recovery feature has not been found in the main on-state but appears at least for two orbits during the low on-state. The pre-eclipse dips are present in both main and low on-states and demonstrate a behaviour like that of early observations. The comparison of durations of the main and short on-states enables us to constrain the accretion disc semithickness and its inclination to the orbital plane.