Related papers: The Be X-ray Binary Outburst Zoo
During observation campaigns of the Galactic Bulge region, BeppoSAX detected a total of 21 new X-ray bursters in about 6 years of operation. These sources are mostly transient and often feature a hard X-ray spectrum, extending up to ~ 200…
The majority of massive classical Be stars are thought to be binary interactions products. Their rapid rotation and often strong, variable, and emission-line dominated spectrum, make spectroscopic analysis challenging. Hence, robust binary…
With their relatively fast variability time-scales, Galactic X-ray binaries provide an excellent laboratory to explore the physics of accretion and related phenomena, most notably outflows, over different regimes. After comparing the…
Compact object binaries formed from dynamics interactions will generically have non-zero orbital eccentricity. The gravitational waves from such binaries can change drastically depending on how large the eccentricity is, ranging from…
It has long been suggested that X-ray transients are produced at periastron of stellar-compact object binaries with eccentric orbits. Recoil of matter evaporated from the star by X-rays from matter transferred at periastron increases the…
We present multi-wavelength long-term monitoring observations of V635 Cas, the optical counterpart to the transient X-ray pulsar 4U0115+63. The evolution of emission lines and photometric magnitudes indicates that the Be star undergoes…
Giant outbursts of Be/X-ray binaries may occur when a Be-star disc undergoes strong eccentricity growth due to the Kozai-Lidov (KL) mechanism. The KL effect acts on a disc that is highly inclined to the binary orbital plane provided that…
By definition transients are sudden events, some, like supernovae, are catastrophic, while others might be due to recurrent phenomena. The aim of studying transients is to reveal the physical conditions causing them, in this sense ideal…
Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients (SFXTs) are a sub-class of High Mass X-ray Binaries (HMXBs) associated with OB supergiant companions and displaying transient X-ray activity. This behaviour is quite surprising since HMXBs hosting…
From Galactic binary sources, to extragalactic magnetized neutron stars, to long-duration GRBs without associated supernovae, the types of sources we now believe capable of producing bursts of gamma-rays continues to grow apace. With this…
We address several issues regarding the interpretation of galactic \ggg-ray sources. We consider powerful pulsars in binaries producing X-ray and gamma-ray {\it unpulsed} emission from the shock interaction of relativistic pulsar winds with…
Disc instability models predict that for X-ray binaries in quiescence, there should be a brightening of the optical flux prior to an X-ray outburst. Tracking the X-ray variations of X-ray binaries in quiescence is generally not possible, so…
Several binary systems have been detected at High Energy (HE, E > 100 MeV) and/or Very High Energy (VHE, E > 100 GeV) gamma rays. Some of them are X-ray binaries in which accretion feeds relativistic radio jets and powers the non-thermal…
Critical progress in our understanding of high energy emission from AGN has been determined in the last 10 years by X-ray monitoring campaigns with many space missions, notably ROSAT, ASCA, RXTE, BeppoSAX, and XMM, often in conjunction with…
We present a short overview of the properties of faint Galactic X-ray binaries. We place emphasis on current classification scenarios. One of the important parameters for the faint sources is their intrinsic luminosity. In the case of…
Binary interactions are commonplace among massive stars, giving rise observed phenomena such as X-ray binaries, stripped stars & supernovae, and gravitational-wave sources. The multiplicity properties of massive stars thus represent a…
We carried out optical high-dispersion spectroscopic monitoring of the Be disk in a Be/X-ray binary A 0535+262/V725 Tau from 2009 to 2012, covering two giant outbursts and several normal outbursts. This monitoring was performed in order to…
Relativistic jets powered by stellar mass black holes in X-ray binaries appear to come in two types: steady outflows associated with hard X-ray states and large scale discrete ejections associated with transient outbursts. We show that the…
A growing number of early Be stars discovered in X-ray surveys exhibit X-ray luminosities intermediate between those of normal stars and those of most Be/X-ray binaries in quiescence. Their X-ray spectra are also much harder than those of…
Gamma-ray emitting binaries (GREBs) are complex systems. Its study became in the last years a major endeavour for the high-energy astrophysics community, both from an observational and a theoretical perspective. Whereas the accumulation of…