Related papers: To differentiate neutron star models by X-ray pola…
Thermal states of neutron stars in soft X-ray transients (SXRTs) are thought to be determined by "deep crustal heating" in the accreted matter that drives the quiescent luminosity and cooling via emission of photons and neutrinos from the…
The intense magnetic fields of neutron stars naturally lead to strong anisotropy and polarization of radiation emanating from their surfaces, both being sensitive to the hot spot position on the surface. Accordingly, pulse phase-resolved…
We model the thermal states of both isolated neutron stars and accreting neutron stars in X-ray transients in quiescence and confront them with observations. We use an equation of state and superfluid baryon gaps, which are consistently…
The thermal nucleation of quark matter bubbles inside neutron stars is examined for various temperatures which the star may realistically encounter during its lifetime. It is found that for a bag constant less than a critical value, a very…
Modeling of X-ray pulse profiles from millisecond pulsars offers a promising method of inferring the mass-to-radius ratios of neutron stars. Recent observations with NICER resulted in measurements of radii for three neutron stars using this…
Knowledge of the structure of galaxy clusters is essential for an understanding of large scale structure in the universe, and may provide important clues to the nature of dark matter. Moreover, the shape of the dark matter distribution in…
Strange quark matter with the density of ~ 5\times 10^{14} g cm^{-3} might exist up to the surface of a strange star. This differs qualitatively from the case of a neutron star and opens observational possibilities to distinguish strange…
As a model for nonideal behavior in the equation of state of QCD at high density, we consider cold quark matter in perturbation theory. To second order in the strong coupling constant, $\alpha_s$, the results depend sensitively on the…
Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are enigmatic sources first discovered in the 1980s in external galaxies. They are characterized by their extraordinarily high X-ray luminosity, which often exceeds $10^{40}\, \rm{erg \; s^{-1}}$. Our…
Neutron stars have long been regarded as extra-terrestrial laboratories from which we can learn about extreme energy density matter at low temperatures. In this article, I highlight some of the recent advances made in astrophysical…
The observed polarization properties of thermal radiation from isolated, cooling neutron stars depend on both the emission processes at the surface and the effects of the magnetized vacuum which surrounds the star. Here we investigate the…
In X-ray binary star systems consisting of a compact object that accretes material from an orbiting secondary star, there is no straightforward means to decide if the compact object is a black hole or a neutron star. To assist this…
A polytropic quark star model is suggested in order to establish a general framework in which theoretical quark star models could be tested by observations. The key difference between polytropic quark stars and the polytropic model studied…
Using observations of X-ray pulsar Her X-1 by the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, we report on a highly significant ($>17\sigma$) detection of the polarization signal from an accreting neutron star. The observed degree of the linear…
As many as $10^9$ neutron stars populate the Galaxy, but only $\approx 10^3$ are directly observed as pulsars or as accreting sources in X-ray binaries. In principle also the accretion of the interstellar medium may make isolated neutron…
We review the X-ray spectra of the cores of clusters of galaxies. Recent high resolution X-ray spectroscopic observations have demonstrated a severe deficit of emission at the lowest X-ray temperatures as compared to that expected from…
Chandra or XMM-Newton observations of quiescent low-mass X-ray binaries can provide important constraints on the equation of state of neutron stars. The mass and radius of the neutron star can potentially be determined from fitting a…
This paper gives an overview of the properties of all possible equilibrium sequences of compact strange-matter stars with nuclear crusts, which range from strange stars to strange dwarfs. In contrast to their non-strange counterparts,…
X-ray pulsars shine thanks to the conversion of the gravitational energy of accreted material to X-ray radiation. The accretion rate is modulated by geometrical and hydrodynamical effects in the stellar wind of the pulsar companions and/or…
Galaxy cluster mass distributions offer an important test of the cold dark matter picture of structure formation, and may even contain clues about the nature of dark matter. X-ray imaging spectroscopy of relaxed systems can map cluster dark…