The Influence of Reprocessing in the Column on the Light Curves of Accretion Powered Neutron Stars

Flow of matter onto strongly magnetized neutron stars in X-ray binaries proceeds through accretion funnels that roughly follow geometry of the magnetic field. X-rays originate near surface of the neutron star, and it may happen that the accretion flow passes through the line of sight as the star rotates. We consider the effects of such accretion flow eclipses on the X-ray light curves of accretion powered pulsars, and present a set of X-ray light-curves measured by BATSE for A0535+262 for which this phenomenon is very likely to take place.