Related papers: New results on neutron star low mass transients in…

We report on a 20 ks BeppoSAX observation of the transient 2.5 ms X-ray pulsar SAX J1808.4-3658 in its quiescent state. A source at a level of ~ 3 x 10^-3 c/s was detected with the BeppoSAX/MECS at a position consistent with that of SAX…

The accreting millisecond pulsar SAX J1808.4-3658 may be a transition object between accreting X-ray binaries and millisecond radio pulsars. We have constrained the thermal radiation from its surface through XMM-Newton X-ray observations,…

We report on BeppoSAX and Chandra observations of three Hard X-Ray Transients in quiescence containing fast spinning (P<5 s) neutron stars: A 0538-66, 4U 0115+63 and V 0332+53. These observations allowed us to study these transients at the…

SAX J1808.4-3658 is a unique source being the first Low Mass X-ray Binary showing coherent pulsations at a spin period comparable to that of millisecond radio pulsars. Here we present an XMM-Newton observation of SAX J1808.4-3658 in…

We present the analysis of a 35 ksec long Chandra observation of the neutron star soft X-ray transient (SXT) SAX J1810.8-2609. We detect three sources in the field of view. The position of one of them is consistent with the location of the…

Variability studies represent a powerful tool to assess the emission mechanism(s) at work in the quiescent state of transient low mass X-ray binaries. Here we report on Chandra and XMM-Newton observations of two well known transient…

The transient accreting millisecond pulsar SAX J1808.4-3658 has shown several outbursts to date but the transition from outburst to quiescence has never been investigated in detail. Thanks to the Swift observing flexibility, we monitored…

We review the observational properties of transient systems made by a neutron star primary and a late dwarf companion (known also as Soft X-ray Transients) during their quiescent state. We focus on the several emission mechanisms proposed…

Thermal X-ray radiation from neutron star soft X-ray transients in quiescence provides the strongest constraints on the cooling rates of neutron stars, and thus on the interior composition and properties of matter in the cores of neutron…

We report here the results of a 90 ks BeppoSAX observation of the low mass X-ray binary and atoll source KS 1731-260 during a quiescent phase. From this observation we derive a source X-ray luminosity of \sim 10^{33} ergs/s (for a source…

SAX J2224.9+5421 is an extraordinary neutron star low-mass X-ray binary. Albeit discovered when it exhibited a ~10-s long thermonuclear X-ray burst, it had faded to a 0.5-10 keV luminosity of Lx<8E32 (D/7.1 kpc)^2 erg/s only ~8 hr later. It…

We report on XMM-Newton observations performed on 2001 September 13-14 of the neutron star X-ray transient KS 1731-260 in quiescence. The source was detected at an unabsorbed 0.5-10 keV flux of only 4 - 8 x 10^{-14} erg/s, depending on the…

We explore, using an exact cooling code, the thermal evolution of a neutron star undergoing episodes of intense accretion, alternated by long periods of quiescence (e.g. Soft X-Ray Transients). We find that the soft component of the…

I will briefly discuss the implications of the recent quiescent Chandra observation of the long-duration neutron star transient KS 1731-260 (Wijnands et al. 2001a) on models for quiescent systems other than the Brown et al. (1998) cooling…

We report on x-ray observations of two soft x-ray transients containing neutron stars, 4U 2129+47 and EXO 0748-676. Our emphasis is on the quiescent properties of these sources. The x-ray spectrum and lightcurve of the eclipsing Low-Mass…

Millisecond radio pulsars are neutron stars that have been spun-up by the transfer of angular momentum during the low-mass X-ray binary phase. The transition from an accretion-powered to a rotation-powered pulsar takes place on evolutionary…

We have observed the millisecond X-ray pulsar SAX J1808.4-3658 on three occasions during its 2000 outburst with the BeppoSAX satellite. The source was highly variable and erratic during this outburst, and by coincidence we obtained data…

The transient neutron star low-mass X-ray binary EXO 1745-248, located in the globular cluster Terzan 5, was detected during its quiescent state with Chandra in 2003. The source displayed a 0.5-10 keV X-ray luminosity of Lq ~ 1E33…

We have identified three possible ways in which future XMM-Newton observations can provide significant constraints on the equation of state of neutron stars. First, using a long observation of the neutron star X-ray transient CenX-4 in…

We summarize the quiescent X-ray observations of transient low-mass X-ray binaries. These observations show that, in quiescence, binaries containing black holes are fainter than those containing neutron stars. This has triggered a number of…