2003A&A...403L..19H

X-ray spectra of the isolated neutron star RBS 1223 obtained with the instruments on board XMM-Newton in December 2001 and January 2003 show deviations from a Planckian energy distribution at energies below 500eV. The spectra are well fit when a broad, Gaussian-shaped absorption line with σ=100eV and centered at an energy of 300eV is added to an absorbed blackbody model. The resulting equivalent width of the line is -150eV. However, the spectral resolution at these low energies of the EPIC detectors and the lower statistical quality and restricted energy band of the RGS instruments are not sufficient to exclude even broader lines at energies down to 100eV or several unresolved lines. The most likely interpretation of the absorption feature is a cyclotron absorption line produced by protons in the magnetic field of the neutron star. In this picture line energies of 100-300eV yield a magnetic field strength of 2-6x10¹³G for a neutron star with canonical mass and radius. Folding light curves from different energy bands at a period of 10.31s, which implies a double peaked pulse profile, shows different hardness ratios for the two peaks. This confirms that the true spin period of RBS 1223 is twice as long as originally thought and suggests variations in cyclotron absorption with pulse phase. We also propose that changes in photo-electric absorption seen in phase resolved spectra of RX J0720.4-3125 by Cropper et al. (2001A&A...365L.302C), when formally fit with an absorbed blackbody model, are caused instead by cyclotron absorption varying with pulse phase.