Related papers: Transient High Mass X-ray Binaries
Be X-ray binaries (BeXRBs) consist of rapidly rotating Be stars with neutron star companions accreting from the circumstellar emission disk. We compare the observed population of BeXRBs in the Small Magellanic Cloud with simulated…
Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients are obviously related to persistent Supergiant X-ray Binaries. Any convincing explanation for their behaviour must consistently take into account all types of X-ray sources powered by wind accretion. Here we…
This paper reviews some of the recent observational results on stellar mass black hole candidates. Over the last decade, much of the progress in this field has been achieved through the study of transient X--ray binary sources which shine…
A small group of X-ray binaries currently provides the best evidence for the existence of stellar-mass black holes. These objects are interacting binary systems where the X-rays arise from accretion of material onto a compact object (i.e.…
Strongly-magnetized ($B\geq10^{12}$ G) accreting neutron stars (NSs) are prime targets for studying the launching of jets by objects with a solid surface; while classical jet-launching models predict that such NSs cannot launch jets, recent…
Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients (SFXTs) are one of the most intriguing (and unexpected) results of the INTEGRAL mission. They are a new class of High Mass X-ray Binaries involving about 20 sources to date, with 8 firmly identified SFXTs…
Black hole (BH) spins in low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) cover a range of values that can be explained by accretion after BH birth. In contrast, the three BH spin measurements in high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) show only values near the…
The orbital motion of a neutron star about its optical companion presents a window through which to study the orbital parameters of that binary system. This has been used extensively in the Milky Way to calculate these parameters for…
Low Mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) are binary systems where one of the components is either a black hole or a neutron star and the other is a less massive star. It is challenging to unambiguously determine whether a LMXB hosts a black hole or…
High-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) are a particular class of high-energy sources that require multi-wavelength observational efforts to be properly characterised. New identifications and the refinement of previous measurements are regularly…
We present the results of a monitoring campaign of three eclipsing high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs: SMC X-1, LMC X-4 and Cen X-3). High-resolution VLT/UVES spectra are used to measure the radial velocities of these systems with high…
The discovery of source states in the X-ray emission of black-hole binaries and neutron-star low-mass X-ray binaries constituted a major step forward in the understanding of the physics of accretion onto compact objects. While there are…
Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients (SFXTs) are a new class of High Mass X-ray Binaries, discovered by the INTEGRAL satellite, which display flares lasting from minutes to hours, with peak luminosity of 1E36-1E37 erg/s. Outside the bright…
We know from observations that globular clusters are very efficient catalysts in forming unusual short-period binary systems or their offspring, such as low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs; neutron stars accreting matter from low-mass stellar…
We investigate the occurrence of stellar bow shocks around high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) in the Galaxy. We seek to conduct a survey of HMXBs in the mid-infrared to search for the presence of bow shocks around these objects. Telescopes…
We present the results of a systematic study of the evolution of low- and intermediate-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs and IMXBs). Using a standard Henyey-type stellar-evolution code and a standard model for binary interactions, we have…
The X-ray light-curves of the recurring outbursts observed in low-mass X-ray binaries provide strong test beds for constraining (still) poorly understood disc-accretion processes. These light-curves act as a powerful diagnostic to probe the…
Very faint X-ray binaries appear to be transient in many cases with peak luminosities much fainter than that of usual soft X-ray transients, but their nature still remains elusive. We investigate the possibility that this transient…
The process of mass-exchange between the components of High Mass X-ray Binary (HMXB) systems with neutron stars undergoing wind-fed accretion is discussed. The X-ray luminosity of these systems allows us to evaluate the mass capture rate by…
Classic massive binary evolutionary scenarios predict that a transitional common-envelope (CE) phase could be preceded as well as succeeded by the evolutionary stage when a binary consists of a compact object and a massive star, that is, a…