2012ApJS..199...32G

The Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) has made hundreds of observations on three famous young pulsars (PSRs) B0531+21 (Crab), B1509-58, and B0540-69. Using the archive RXTE data, we have studied the phase-resolved spectral properties of these pulsars in details. The variation of the X-ray spectrum with phase of PSR B0531+21 is confirmed here much more precisely and more details are revealed than in the previous studies: The spectrum softens from the beginning of the first pulse, turns to harden right at the pulse peak and becomes the hardest at the bottom of the bridge, softens gradually until the second peak, and then softens rapidly. Different from the previous studies, we found that the spectrum of PSR B1509-58 is significantly harder in the center of the pulse, which is also in contrast to that of PSR B0531+21. The variation of the X-ray spectrum of PSR B0540-69 seems similar to that of PSR B1509-58, but with a lower significance. Using about 10 years of data span, we also studied the real time evolution of the spectra of these pulsars, and no significant evolution has been detected. We discuss the constraints of these results on theoretical models of pulsar X-ray emission.