Related papers: On burning regimes and long duration X-ray bursts
Thermonuclear X-ray bursts from the surface of accreting neutron stars are the most common astrophysical explosions in our galaxy. They provide a unique window into the physics of neutron stars, the physics of matter under extreme…
Plasma accreted onto the surface of a neutron star can ignite due to unstable thermonuclear burning and produce a bright flash of X-ray emission called a Type-I X-ray burst. Such events are very common; thousands have been observed to date…
I review our understanding of the thermonuclear instabilities on accreting neutron stars that produce Type I X-Ray bursts. I emphasize those observational and theoretical aspects that should interest the broad audience of this meeting. The…
We use the two-zone model of Cooper & Narayan to study the onset and time evolution of hydrogen-triggered type I X-ray bursts on accreting neutron stars. At the lowest accretion rates, thermally unstable hydrogen burning ignites helium as…
Observations of Type I X-ray bursts have long been taken as evidence that the sources are neutron stars. Black body models approximate the spectral data and imply a suddenly heated neutron star cooling over characteristic times of seconds…
Superbursts are very energetic Type I X-ray bursts discovered in recent years by long term monitoring of X-ray bursters, and believed to be due to unstable ignition of carbon in the deep ocean of the neutron star. In this Letter, we follow…
The last few years have seen the discovery of a number of new aspects of Type I X-ray bursts: the extremely energetic and long duration superbursts, intermediate duration bursts at low luminosities, mHz QPOs, and burst oscillations. These…
We have assembled a sample of 1187 thermonuclear (type-I) X-ray bursts from 48 accreting neutron stars by the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, spanning more than ten years. The sample contains examples of two of the three theoretical ignition…
Type-I X-ray bursts observed from neutron stars originate from intermittent unstable thermonuclear burning of accreted matter on these stars. Such bursts, particularly those reaching the Eddington luminosity and having a temporary…
Type-I X-ray bursts are thermonuclear explosions occurring in the surface layers of accreting neutron stars. These events are powerful probes of the physics of neutron stars and their surrounding accretion flow. We analyze a very energetic…
Since the advent of powerful new X-ray observatories, NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE), the Italian - Dutch BeppoSAX mission, XMM-Newton and Chandra, a number of entirely new phenomena associated with thermonuclear burning on…
Thermonuclear X-ray bursts from accreting neutron stars power brief but strong irradiation of their surroundings, providing a unique way to study accretion physics. We analyze MAXI/GSC and Swift/XRT spectra of a day-long flash observed from…
I present ignition models for Type I X-ray bursts and superbursts from the ultracompact binary 4U 1820-30. A pure helium secondary is usually assumed for this system, although some evolutionary models predict a small amount of hydrogen…
Burst oscillations, a phenomenon observed in a significant fraction of Type I (thermonuclear) X-ray bursts, involve the development of highly asymmetric brightness patches in the burning surface layers of accreting neutron stars.…
Thermonuclear (type-I) bursts arise from unstable ignition of accumulated fuel on the surface of neutron stars in low-mass X-ray binaries. Measurements of burst properties in principle enable observers to infer the properties of the host…
Superbursts are thought to be powered by the unstable ignition of a carbon-enriched layer formed from the burning of accreted hydrogen and helium. As shown by Cumming & Bildsten, the short recurrence time hinges on the crust being…
The study of the observational properties of uncommonly long bursts from low luminosity sources with extended decay times up to several tens of minutes is important when investigating the transition from a hydrogen-rich bursting regime to a…
[Abridged] Type-I X-ray bursts are thermonuclear flashes that take place on the surface of accreting neutron stars. The wait time between consecutive bursts is set by the time required to accumulate the fuel needed to trigger a new burst;…
The excess of the rate of type I X-ray bursts over that expected when the matter fallen between bursts completely burns out in a thermonuclear explosion is explained in terms of the model of a spreading layer of matter coming from the…
[abridged] The LMXB 4U 0614+091 is a source of sporadic thermonuclear (type I) X-ray bursts. We find bursts with a wide variety of characteristics in serendipitous wide-field X-ray observations by EURECA/WATCH, RXTE/ASM, BeppoSAX/WFC,…