Related papers: Short term aperiodic variability of X-ray binaries…
We summarize the quiescent X-ray observations of transient low-mass X-ray binaries. These observations show that, in quiescence, binaries containing black holes are fainter than those containing neutron stars. This has triggered a number of…
Some progress in understanding AGN variability is reviewed. Reprocessing of X-ray radiation to produce significant amounts of longer-wavelength continua seems to be ruled out. In some objects where there has been correlated X-ray and…
In this article I will review the theory behind the gravitational wave driven r-mode instability in rapidly rotating neutron stars and discuss which constraints can be derived from observations of spins and temperatures in Low Mass X-ray…
The Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) has found that the neutron stars in low-mass X-ray binaries exhibit oscillations in the range 300-1200 Hz. Persistent emission may exhibit one or both of two features. In bursts a nearly coherent…
We review X-ray flux modulation from X-ray binaries on time scales corresponding to the orbital period and those at longer time scales (so called superorbital). Those modulations provide a powerful tool to constrain geometry of the…
We present a brief overview of test-bed observations on accreting neutron star binaries for the Simbol-X mission. We show that Simbol-X will provide unique observations able to disclose the physical mechanisms responsible for their high…
Neutron stars in low mass X-ray binaries exhibit oscillations during thermonuclear bursts, attributed to asymmetric brightness patterns on the burning surfaces. All models that have been proposed to explain the origin of these asymmetries…
We investigate the spectroscopic characteristics of the optical components of Be/X-ray binary systems, using data collected during our seven-year monitoring campaign. We find examples of major changes in the emission line profiles…
Cataclysmic variable stars are in many ways similar to X-ray binaries. Both types of systems possess an accretion disk, which in most cases can reach the surface (or event horizon) of the central compact object. The main difference is that…
Binary systems with a neutron-star primary accreting from a companion star display variability in the X-ray band on time scales ranging from years to milliseconds. With frequencies of up to ~1300 Hz, the kilohertz quasi-periodic…
Ultraluminous X-ray binaries have challenged our assumptions of extreme accretion rates in X-ray binaries, and impact other subfields of astronomy, such as cosmology, gravitational wave sources and supernov{\ae}. Our understanding of ULXs…
A substantial fraction of the known neutron stars resides in X-ray binaries -- systems in which one compact object accretes matter from a companion star. Neutron stars in X-ray binaries have magnetic fields among the highest found in the…
We present a short overview of the properties of faint Galactic X-ray binaries. We place emphasis on current classification scenarios. One of the important parameters for the faint sources is their intrinsic luminosity. In the case of…
In neutron star and black hole X-ray binaries the transitions between the two spectral states, hard and soft, signals the change between accretion via a hot advection-dominated flow(ADAF) and disk accretion. In a few cases the hard/soft…
We present a new scenario for the behaviour of Be/X-ray binaries based on long-term multiwavelength monitoring and the decretion disc model. The circumstellar discs of the primaries are truncated because of the tidal and resonant effect of…
The radio/X-ray correlation is one of the most important pieces of observational evidence of the disk-jet connection in accreting compact objects. However, a growing number of X-ray binaries seem to present deviations from the universal…
The appearance and time variability of accreting millisecond X-ray pulsars (hereafter AMXPs, e.g. Wijnands & van der Klis 1998) depends strongly on the accretion rate, the effective viscosity and the effective magnetic diffusivity of the…
I review the X-ray observations of Galactic accreting black holes and neutron stars, and interpretions of these in terms of solutions of the accretion flow equations.
Despite early theoretical expectations that large-scale, massive outflows would be triggered by accretion onto black holes and neutron stars, their presence was not firmly established until the 2000s. Since then, these accretion disc winds…
We analyze the currently available observations of X-ray binaries in a consistent way, to re-determine the masses of the neutron stars in these systems. In particular, our attention is focussed on a realistic and consistent assessment of…