Upper panel: inclination angles of the columns with respect to the line of sight to the observer obtained by assuming an intrinsic beam pattern with N₂ = 25. The dashed line represents the column that is farther away from the observer; the dot-dashed line, the other. The solid line is the average inclination angle of the two columns weighted for their relative flux measured at the location of the observer. The dotted line is the synthetic pulse profile, scaled to fit into the plot. Lower panel: relation between the angles ψ and α of Fig. A.1 for different locations from the center of the NS in units of the gravitational radius. The three locations correspond to the base of the accretion column, its midpoint, and the top of the column, respectively (calculated according to the geometry of the system defined in Sect. 4).