Related papers: Thermonuclear burst oscillations
Neutron stars, with their strong surface gravity, have interestingly short timescales for the sedimentation of heavy elements. Recent observations of unstable thermonuclear burning (observed as X-ray bursts) on the surfaces of slowly…
Thermonuclear flashes of hydrogen and helium accreted onto neutron stars produce the frequently observed Type I X-ray bursts. It is the current paradigm that almost all material burns in a burst, after which it takes hours to accumulate…
We have shown previously that many of the properties of persistent accretion-powered millisecond pulsars can be understood if their X-ray emitting areas are near their spin axes and move as the accretion rate and structure of the inner disk…
The Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer has detected nearly coherent oscillations in the tails of type I X-ray bursts from 17 low-mass X-ray binaries. The oscillations are thought to be generated by brightness fluctuations associated with a surface…
Hydrogen and helium accreted onto a neutron star undergo thermonuclear burning. Explosive burning is observed as a type I X-ray burst. We describe the different burning regimes and focus on some of the current inconsistencies between theory…
X-ray bursts are thermonuclear flashes on the surface of accreting neutron stars and reliable burst models are needed to interpret observations in terms of properties of the neutron star and the binary system. We investigate the dependence…
X-ray brightness oscillations with frequencies from 300 - 600 Hz have been observed in six low mass X-ray binary (LMXB) bursters with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE). These oscillations likely result from spin modulation of a hot…
We examine the energy-resolved pulse profiles of 51 flux oscillations observed during the decline of thermonuclear X-ray bursts from accreting weakly- magnetized neutron stars with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer. We find that the…
Precision measurements of neutron star radii can provide a powerful probe of the properties of cold matter beyond nuclear density. Beginning in the late 1970s it was proposed that the radius could be obtained from the apparent or inferred…
Nuclear burning and its dependence on the mass accretion rate are fundamental ingredients for describing the complicated observational phenomenology of neutron stars in binary systems. Motivated by high quality burst rate data emerging from…
We study the spin-down of a neutron star atmosphere during the Type I X-ray burst in low mass X-ray binaries. Using polar cap acceleration models, we show that the resulting stellar ``wind'' torque on the burning shell due to the flowing…
Matter in neutron star cores reaches extremely high densities, forming states of matter that cannot be generated in the laboratory. The Equation of State (EOS) of the matter links to macroscopic observables, such as mass M and radius R, via…
X-ray burst spectra have long been used to estimate neutron star masses and radii. These estimates assumed that burst spectra are accurately described by the model atmosphere spectra developed over the last three decades. We compared RXTE…
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…
Relativistic jets are observed from accreting and cataclysmic transients throughout the Universe, and have a profound affect on their surroundings. Despite their importance, their launch mechanism is not known. For accreting neutron stars,…
The accreting millisecond pulsar XTE J1814-338 exhibits oscillations at the known spin frequency during Type I X-ray bursts. The properties of the burst oscillations reflect the nature of the thermal asymmetry on the stellar surface. We…
Crustal torsional oscillations depend on not only crust properties but also the stellar mass and radius. Thus, one could extract stellar information by identifying the observed frequencies of stellar oscillations with the crustal torsional…
Glitches -- sudden increases in spin rate -- are observed in many pulsars. One mechanism advanced to explain glitches in the youngest pulsars is that they are caused by a starquake, a sudden rearrangement of the crust of the neutron star.…
Type I X-ray bursts are produced by thermonuclear runaways that develop on accreting neutron stars. Once one location ignites, the flame propagates across the surface of the star. Flame propagation is fundamental in order to understand…
The discovery of high-frequency brightness oscillations in thermonuclear X-ray bursts from several neutron-star low-mass X-ray binaries has important implications for the beat frequency model of kilohertz quasi-periodic brightness…