English

Variability in the quiescent state of neutron star transients

Astrophysics 2007-05-23 v1

Abstract

Variability studies represent a powerful tool to assess the emission mechanism(s) at work in the quiescent state of transient low mass X-ray binaries. Here we report on Chandra and XMM-Newton observations of two well known transient sources: Aql X-1 and Cen X-4. Long and short term variability is observed. This variability can be easily interpreted in view of an active millisecond radio pulsar emitting X-rays at the shock between a radio pulsar wind and inflowing matter from the companion star.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0404128,
  title  = {Variability in the quiescent state of neutron star transients},
  author = {Sergio Campana},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0404128},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

in Binary Radio Pulsars, proceedings of an Aspen Winter Conference, eds. F. Rasio, I. Stairs, 3 pages