Presentation #107.30 in the session Stellar/Compact Objects - Poster Session.
We discuss the observed spectra and pulse profiles resulting from the emission of photons from the wall and top of a dipole-shaped accretion column in an X-ray pulsar, powered by mass transfer from a binary companion. The spectral calculations are based on the model of West, Wolfram, & Becker (2017), who for the first time solved a fully self-consistent photon transport equation coupled with a rigorous set of dynamical equations and boundary conditions that includes the effects of both radiation pressure and gas pressure. The simulation of the observed spectra and pulse profiles is accomplished by integrating the height-dependent spectrum emerging from the accretion column, coupled with the effects of special relativistic aberration, and general relativistic light-bending and redshifting in the Schwarzschild metric. The resulting self-consistent radiation-hydrodynamical model provides the most robust theoretical platform currently available for the interpretation of phase-dependent spectra and pulse profiles. We discuss applications of the model to the high-luminosity source Her X-1 in which radiation pressure plays a central role in determining the accretion dynamics.