Observation of variable pre-eclipse dips and disc windsin the eclipsing LMXB XTE J1710-281

International audienceWe report the first detection of highly ionized Fe species in the X-ray spectrum of the eclipsing and dipping Low-Mass X-ray Binary XTE J1710-281. Using archival Chandra and Suzaku observations, we have carried out a spectro-timing analysis of the source during three different epochs. We compare the average orbital profile and obtain differences in pre-eclipse dip morphologies between different observation epochs. We observe an orbit-to-orbit evolution of the dips for the first time in this source in both the Chandra observations, reflecting changes in the structure of the accretion disc in time-scales of hours. We further perform intensity resolved spectroscopy for both the Chandra and the Suzaku data to characterize the changes in the spectral parameters from the persistent to the dipping intervals. We find that the absorbers responsible for the dips can be best described using a partially ionized partial covering absorber, with an ionization parameter, log(ξ) of ∼2. The photon index of the source remained at ∼2 during both the Chandra and the Suzaku observations. In the 0.6–9 keV Suzaku spectra, we detect a broad 0.72 keV Fe L-alpha emission line complex and two narrow absorption lines at ∼6.60 and ∼7.01 keV. The highly ionized Fe line signatures, being an indicator of accretion disc winds, have been observed for the first time in XTE J1710-281