Evolution of the bursting-layer wave during a Type 1 X-ray burst
Abstract
In a popular scenario due to Heyl, quasi periodic oscillations (QPOs) which are seen during type 1 X-ray bursts are produced by giant travelling waves in neutron-star oceans. Piro and Bildsten have proposed that during the burst cooling the wave in the bursting layer may convert into a deep crustal interface wave, which would cut off the visible QPOs. This cut-off would help explain the magnitude of the QPO frequency drift, which is otherwise overpredicted by a factor of several in Heyl's scenario. In this paper, we study the coupling between the bursting layer and the deep ocean. The coupling turns out to be weak and only a small fraction of the surface-wave energy gets transferred to that of the crustal-interface wave during the burst. Thus the crustal-interface wave plays no dynamical role during the burst, and no early QPO cut-off should occur.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0708.2337,
title = {Evolution of the bursting-layer wave during a Type 1 X-ray burst},
author = {R. G. Berkhout and Yuri Levin},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0708.2337},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
8 pages, submitted to MNRAS