The X-ray Variability of HD 5980 comma the SMC.s \d_commaEta Carinae\d_comma

HD 5980 is an Eta Carlike binary system in which one of the stellar componentsis an eruptive Luminous Blue Variable. Unlike Eta Car, the nature of the Xrayvariability of HD 5980 is unclear. We propose to reobserve HD 5980 with XMM tomeasure the Xray brightness at four critical orbital phases to constrain thephase dependence of the Xray emission and to provide a benchmark for futurespectrographic observations with XMM and CHANDRA. The observations we propose,combined with previous CHANDRA and XMM observations, will determine theimportance of colliding wind Xray emission from this system and will also helpconstrain how the Xray emission depends on the variable mass loss from the LBVcomponent. truncated!, Please see actual data for full text [truncated!, Please see actual data for full text]