Related papers: On Pulsar-Driven Mass Ejection in Low-Mass X-ray B…
The recurring transient outbursts in low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) provide ideal laboratories to study the accretion process. Unlike their supermassive relatives, LMXBs are far too small and distant to be imaged directly. Fortunately,…
We study the evolution of some microquasars during their outbursts as observed with the X-ray telescopes RXTE and INTEGRAL. We focus on the interplay between the accretion disc, and the medium responsible for the production of the hard…
The discovery of millisecond pulsars switching between states powered either by the rotation of their magnetic field or by the accretion of matter, has recently proved the tight link shared by millisecond radio pulsars and neutron stars in…
X-rays trace accretion onto compact objects in binaries with low mass companions at rates ranging up to near Eddington. Accretion at high rates onto neutron stars goes through cycles with time-scales of days to months. At lower average…
Extreme accretion in X-ray pulsars (XRPs) results in radiation-driven outflows launched from the inner parts of the accretion disc. The outflows affect the apparent luminosity of the XRPs and their pulsations through the geometrical…
Context. Since the discovery of the first Accreting Millisecond X-ray Pulsar SAX J1808.4-3658 in 1998, the family of these sources kept growing on. Currently, it counts 22 members. All AMXPs are transients with usually very long quiescence…
A large fraction of X-ray sources in our Galaxy are low-mass X-ray binaries, containing a black hole or a neutron star accreting from a gravitationally bound low-mass ($\leq$1 M$_\odot$) companion star. These systems are among the older…
Using the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RossiXTE), astronomers have discovered that disk-accreting neutron stars with weak magnetic fields produce three distinct types of high-frequency X-ray oscillations. These oscillations are powered by…
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…
Modelling of thermonuclear X-ray bursts on accreting neutron stars has to date focused on stable accretion rates. However, bursts are also observed during episodes of transient accretion. During such events, the accretion rate can evolve…
A simple and natural explanation for the minimum period of millisecond pulsars follows from a correlation between the accretion rate and the frozen surface dipole magnetic field resulting from Ohmic diffusion through the neutron star crust…
We present an instability, occurring in the inner region of magnetized accretion disks, which seems to be a good candidate to explain the low-frequency QPO observed in many X-ray binaries. We then briefly show how, in the remarkable case of…
Magnetic braking has a prominent role in driving the evolution of close low mass binary systems and heavily influences the rotation rates of low mass F- and later type stars with convective envelopes. Several possible prescriptions that…
Study of observed spin evolution of long-period X-ray pulsars challenges quasi-spherical and Keplerian disk accretion scenarios. It suggests that the magnetospheric radius of the neutron stars is substantially smaller than Alfven radius and…
Low energy X-ray emission (0.1-10 keV) from all six millisecond radio pulsars (MSPs) for which such emission has been reported support a proposed pulsar magnetic field evolution previously compared only to radiopulse data: old, very…
We present a timing analysis of the 2015 outburst of the accreting millisecond X-ray pulsar SAX J1808.4-3658, using non-simultaneous XMM-Newton and NuStar observations. We estimate the pulsar spin frequency and update the system orbital…
We present a new mechanism for the ejection of a common envelope in a massive binary, where the energy source is nuclear energy rather than orbital energy. This can occur during the slow merger of a massive primary with a secondary of 1-3…
If millisecond pulsars (MSPs) are responsible for the excess gamma-ray emission observed from the region surrounding the Galactic Center, the same region should also contain a large population of low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs). In this…
We give a global analysis of mass transfer variations in low-mass X-ray binaries and cataclysmic variables whose evolution is driven by the nuclear expansion of the secondary star. We show that limit cycles caused by irradiation of the…
(abridged) We present the first study that combines binary population synthesis in the Galactic disk and detailed evolutionary calculations of low- and intermediate-mass X-ray binaries (L/IMXBs). We show that the formation probability of…