Related papers: Quantifying Rapid Variability in Accreting Compact…
In the analysis of variable stars, the problem of sampling is central. This article focusses on the determination of the Nyquist frequency. It is well defined in the case of regular sampling. However, the time series of variable stars…
In addition to coherent pulsation, many accreting neutron stars exhibit flaring activity and strong aperiodic variability on time scales similar to or shorter than their pulsation period. Such a behavior shows that the accretion flow in the…
Millisecond variability detected in low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) probably reflects motions of accreting fluid in the strong-field gravity of neutron stars or neutron stars. Parametric resonance between two oscillators with unequal…
The Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) has found that the neutron stars in low-mass X-ray binaries exhibit oscillations in the range 300-1200 Hz. Persistent emission may exhibit one or both of two features. In bursts a nearly coherent…
Before the launch of the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellite, the differences in the rapid X-ray variability between the two main types of neutron star binaries (i.e., the Z and atoll sources) could be explained by invoking…
This dissertation is written as an annotated collection of selected articles. The dissertation focuses on the modelling of accretion disks in X-ray binaries with a black hole or neutron star. The main objective is to use advanced numerical…
The extreme conditions found near black holes and neutron stars provide a unique opportunity for testing physical theories. Observations of both types of compact objects can be used to probe regions of strong gravity, allowing for tests of…
We show how one can estimate the multipole moments of the space-time, assuming that the quasi-periodic modulations of the X-ray flux (quasi-periodic oscillations), observed from accreting neutron stars or black holes, are due to orbital and…
Accretion disks around compact objects are expected to enter an unstable phase at high luminosity. One instability may occur when the radiation pressure generated by accretion modifies the disk viscosity, resulting in the cyclic depletion…
Accreting neutron stars and black holes share a number of rapid variability characteristics, such as quasi-periodic oscillations and broad-band noise. The frequencies of these features were recently shown to be comparable to fundamental…
A statistic w, the differential coefficient of the mean absolute difference of an observed lightcurve, is proposed for timescale analysis of shot widths. The shortest width of random shots can be measured by the position of the lower…
The appearance and time variability of accreting millisecond X-ray pulsars (hereafter AMXPs, e.g. Wijnands & van der Klis 1998) depends strongly on the accretion rate, the effective viscosity and the effective magnetic diffusivity of the…
Conventional techniques that measure rapid time variations are inefficient or inadequate to discover and observe rapidly pulsating astronomical sources. It is therefore conceivable that there exist some classes of objects pulsating with…
The characteristic physical timescales near stellar-mass compact objects are measured in milliseconds. These timescales -- the free-fall time, the fastest stable orbital period, and stellar spin periods -- encode the fundamental physical…
In the past decades, the phenomenology of fast time variations of high-energy flux from black-hole binaries has increased, thanks to the availability of more and more sophisticated space observatories, and a complex picture has emerged.…
We propose a simple and unambiguous way to deduce the parameters of black holes which may reside in AGNs and some types of X-ray binaries. The black-hole mass and angular momentum are determined in physical units. The method is applicable…
Many upcoming surveys, particularly in the radio and optical domains, are designed to probe either the temporal and/or the spatial variability of a range of astronomical objects. In the light of these high resolution surveys, we review the…
The analysis of time variability, whether fast variations on time scales well below the second or slow changes over years, is becoming more and more important in high-energy astronomy. Many sophisticated tools are available for data…
A common question about compact objects in high energy astrophysics is whether it is possible to distinguish black hole from neutron star systems with some other property that is not the mass of the compact object. Up to now a few…
We analyzed the power density spectra of a sample of 9 neutron star and 9 black hole binaries in the low/hard spectral state. In the power density spectra of accreting neutron stars with a weak magnetic field a significant power is…