Related papers: Be/X-ray Binaries
The population of Be/X-ray binaries shows strong evidence of bimodality, especially in the spin period of neutron stars. Several physical mechanisms may produce this bimodality. The most favored candidate mechanisms are two distinct…
During five years of Chandra observations, we have identified seven X-ray transients located within 23 pc of Sgr A*. These sources each vary in luminosity by more than a factor of 10, and have peak X-ray luminosities greater than 5e33…
Transient X-ray binaries remain in their quiescent state for a long time (months to hundred years) and then bright up as the most powerful sources of the X-ray sky. While it is clear that, when in outbursts, transient binaries are powered…
Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients (SFXTs) represent the most extreme case of X-ray variability in High Mass X-ray Binaries hosting blue supergiant companions. Mainly discovered thanks to the INTEGRAL monitoring of the Galactic plane, these…
The study of the hard (E>10 keV) energy spectra of X-ray binary pulsars can give a wealth of information on the physical processes that occur close to the neutron star surface. Extreme matter regimes are probed, and precious information on…
Recent discoveries have confirmed the existence of a large population of X-ray sources fuelled by accretion from the stellar wind of an OB supergiant. Such systems are powerful laboratories to study many aspects of astrophysics. Over 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…
In the past five years observations with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer have revealed fast quasi-periodic oscillations in the X-ray flux of about 20 X-ray binaries. Thought to originate close to the surface of a neutron star, these…
X-ray binaries, as bright local sources with short variability timescales for a wide range of accretion processes, represent ideal targets for high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy. In this chapter, we present a high-resolution X-ray spectral…
Ultra-stripped supernovae are different from other terminal explosions of massive stars, as they show little or no ejecta from the actual supernova event. They are thought to occur in massive binary systems after the exploding star has lost…
We study the radiation-driven warping of accretion discs in the context of X-ray binaries. The latest evolutionary equations are adopted, which extend the classical alpha theory to time-dependent thin discs with non-linear warps. We also…
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…
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…
Some ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) exhibit X-ray pulses, and their central sources are thought to be neutron stars. It has also been suggested that some are transient sources with Be-type donors. In this study, we use the mass…
We present the optical spectroscopic observations of X Per from 1999 to 2013 with the 2.16m telescope at Xinglong Station and the 2.4m telescope at Lijiang station, National Astronomical Observatories of China. Combining with the public…
It is thought that neutron stars in low-mass binary systems can accrete matter and angular momentum from the companion star and be spun-up to millisecond rotational periods. During the accretion stage, the system is called a low-mass X-ray…
It is now widely accepted that most ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are binary systems whose large (above $10^{39}$ erg s$^{-1}$) apparent luminosities are explained by super-Eddington accretion onto a stellar-mass compact object. Many…
Compact binaries have long been a paradigm for accretion theory. Much of our present view of how accretion occurs comes directly from the comparison of theory with observations of these sources. Since theory differs little for other objects…
Recently, compact black hole X-ray binaries XTE J 1118+480 and A0620-00 have been reported to be experiencing a fast orbital period decay, which is two orders of magnitude higher than expected with gravitational wave radiation. Magnetic…
The enigmatic X-ray emission from the bright optical star, $\gamma$ Cassiopeia, is a long-standing problem. $\gamma$ Cas is known to be a binary system consisting of a Be-type star and a low-mass ($M\sim 1\,M_\odot$) companion of unknown…