Related papers: Massive X-ray binaries: New developments in the IN…
A substantial fraction of the known neutron stars resides in X-ray binaries -- systems in which one compact object accretes matter from a companion star. Neutron stars in X-ray binaries have magnetic fields among the highest found in the…
Accreting X-ray pulsars are among the most luminous objects in the X-ray sky. In highly magnetized neutron stars (B~10^12 G), the flow of matter is dominated by the strong magnetic field. The general properties of accreting X-ray binaries…
Millisecond pulsar (MSP) binaries are unique laboratories for studying matter and radiation under extreme conditions that are unattainable on Earth. Recent detections of optical millisecond pulsations from three systems in distinct…
The most powerful cosmic engines in our universe are fueled by compact objects. These objects accrete large amounts of material and eject matter in the form of jets. Recent groundbreaking discoveries of gravitational waves from merging…
We review the likely population, observational properties, and broad implications of stellar-mass black holes and ultraluminous x-ray sources. We focus on the clear empirical rules connecting accretion and outflow that have been established…
Stars are mostly found in binary and multiple systems, as at least 50% of all solar-like stars have companions - a fraction that goes up to 100% for the most massive stars. Moreover, a large fraction of them will interact in some way or…
We review the properties of 40 X-ray binaries that contain either a confirmed black hole or a black hole candidate. After discussing briefly the significance of these Galactic black holes to both astronomy and physics, we present basic data…
The high multiplicity of massive stars in dense, young clusters is established early in their evolution. The mechanism behind this remains unresolved. Recent results suggest that massive protostars may capture companions through disk…
Asteroseismology has become an indispensable method for measuring stellar ages and radii, while binary systems remain the most prevalent tool for determining stellar masses. The synergy of the two, namely pulsating stars in binary systems,…
It is now clear that a binary formation pathway is responsible for a significant fraction of planetary nebulae, and this increased sample of known binaries means that we are now in a position to begin to constrain their influence on the…
XMM-Newton has deeply changed our picture of X-ray emission of hot, massive stars. High-resolution X-ray spectroscopy as well as monitoring of these objects helped us gain a deeper insight into the physics of single massive stars with or…
X-ray binaries provide exceptional laboratories for understanding the physics of matter under the most extreme conditions. Until recently, there were few, if any, observational constraints on the circumbinary environments of X-ray binaries…
Binary/multiple status can affect stars at all stages of their lifetimes: evolution onto the main sequence, properties on the main sequence, and subsequent evolution. 5 $M_\odot$ stars have provided a wealth of information about the binary…
Three important developments are vastly increasing our understanding of the role of binaries in the dynamical evolution of globular clusters. From the observational side, the Hubble Space Telescope has shown us detailed pictures of the…
Star-forming regions have been the targets of X-ray observations since the dawn of satellite X-ray astronomy. The increase in sensitivity and/or spatial resolution offered by XMM-Newton and Chandra allows a dramatic improvement, both…
The X-ray spectra of Low Mass X-ray Binaries (LMXB) can change on short time-scales, making it difficult to follow their spectral characteristics in detail through model fitting. Colour-colour (C-C) diagrams are therefore often used as…
The complexity of composite spectra of close binary star system makes study of the spectra of their component stars extremely difficult. For this reason there exists very little information on the photospheric chemical composition of stars…
If binaries consisting of two 100 Msun black holes exist they would serve as extraordinarily powerful gravitational-wave sources, detectable to redshifts of z=2 with the advanced LIGO/Virgo ground-based detectors. Large uncertainties about…
In latest years, the high sensitivity of the instruments on-board the XMM-Newton and Chandra satellites allowed us to explore the properties of the X-ray emission from hot subdwarf stars. The small but growing sample of X-ray detected hot…
After more than six and half years in orbit, the ESA space observatory INTEGRAL has provided new, exciting results in the soft gamma-ray energy range (from a few keV to a few MeV). With the discovery of about 700 hard X-Ray sources, it has…