Related papers: Burning in the tail: implications for a burst osci…
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…
Previously, observations with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer showed that millisecond oscillations occur preferentially in thermonuclear X-ray bursts with photospheric radius expansion from sources rotating near 600 Hz, while they occur…
Neutron stars (NSs) in low-mass X-ray binaries rotate at frequencies high enough to significantly deviate from sphericity ($\nu_* \sim$ 200--600 Hz). We investigate the effects of rapid rotation on the observational appearance of a NS. We…
The increase in spin frequency as the burning atmospheres of TypeI X-ray bursts cool provides a strong constraint on the radius of the underlying neutron star. If the change in spin frequency is due to a change in the thickness of the…
High amplitude X-ray brightness oscillations during thermonuclear X-ray bursts were discovered with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) in early 1996. Spectral and timing evidence strongly supports the conclusion that these oscillations…
We analyze the global hydrodynamic flow in the ocean of an accreting, rapidly rotating, non-magnetic neutron star in an LMXB during a type I X-ray burst. Our analysis takes into account the rapid rotation of the star and the lift-up of the…
Runaway thermonuclear burning of a layer of accumulated fuel on the surface of a compact star provides a brief but intense display of stellar nuclear processes. For neutron stars accreting from a binary companion, these events manifest as…
Burst oscillations are brightness asymmetries that develop in the burning ocean during thermonuclear bursts on accreting neutron stars. They have been observed during H/He-triggered (Type I) bursts and Carbon-triggered superbursts. The…
In this article I will review the theory behind the gravitational wave driven r-mode instability in rapidly rotating neutron stars and discuss which constraints can be derived from observations of spins and temperatures in Low Mass X-ray…
We re-visit the calculation of mode oscillations in the ocean of a rotating neutron star, which may be excited during thermonuclear X-ray bursts. Our present theoretical understanding of ocean modes relies heavily on the traditional…
Millisecond period brightness oscillations during the intensity rise of thermonuclear X-ray bursts are likely caused by an azimuthally asymmetric, expanding burning region on the stellar surface. The time evolution of the oscillation…
The rotation rates of six weakly-magnetic neutron stars accreting in low-mass X-ray binaries have most likely been measured by Type I X-ray burst observations with RXTE. The nearly coherent oscillations detected during the few seconds of…
Material accreted onto a neutron star can stably burn in steady state only when the accretion rate is high (typically super-Eddington) or if a large flux from the neutron star crust permeates the outer atmosphere. For such situations we…
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.…
Neutron stars in low mass X-ray binaries exhibit oscillations during thermonuclear bursts, attributed to asymmetric brightness patterns on the burning surfaces. All models that have been proposed to explain the origin of these asymmetries…
The neutron star ocean is a plasma of ions and electrons that extends from the base of the neutron star's envelope to a depth where the plasma crystallizes into a solid crust. During an accretion outburst in an X-ray transient, material…
We analyze the frequency evolution of millisecond oscillations observed during type I X-ray bursts with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer in order to establish the stability of the mechanism underlying the oscillations. Our sample contains 68…
We consider an instability of rapidly rotating neutron stars in low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) with respect to excitation of r-modes (which are analogous to Earth's Rossby waves controlled by the Coriolis force). We argue that finite…
Since the advent of powerful new X-ray observatories, NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE), the Italian - Dutch BeppoSAX mission, XMM-Newton and Chandra, a number of entirely new phenomena associated with thermonuclear burning on…
In a coalescing neutron star-neutron star (NS-NS) or neutron star-black hole (NS-BH) binary, oscillation modes of the NS can be resonantly excited by the companion during the final minutes of the inspiral. The resonant energy transfer…