Related papers: X-ray irradiation in low mass binary systems
Detailed analysis of the lightcurve of CAL 87 clearly has shown that the high optical luminosity comes from the accretion disc rim and can only be explained by a severe thickening of the disc rim near the location where the accretion stream…
We study the prospect of explaining the outbursts of Soft X-ray Transients (SXTs) by the thermal-viscous instability in a thin disc. This instability is linked to hydrogen ionization and is significantly changed when irradiation of the disc…
Low-mass young stellar objects are powerful emitters of X-rays that can ionize and heat the disks and the young planets they harbour. The X-rays produce molecular ions that affect the chemistry of the disk atmospheres and their…
Accretion discs around black holes in X-ray binary stars are warped if the spin axis of the black hole is not perpendicular to the binary orbital plane. They can also become eccentric through an instability involving a resonance with the…
X-ray flux from the inner hot region around central compact object in a binary system illuminates the upper surface of an accretion disc and it behaves like a corona. This region can be photoionised by the illuminating radiation, thus can…
In this chapter, I present a summary of observational tests of the basic picture of disk accretion. An emphasis is placed on tests relevant to black holes, but many of the fundamental results are drawn from studies of other classes of…
Motivated by recent work indicating that the UV continuum in AGN may be produced by reradiation of energy absorbed from X-rays irradiating an accretion disk, we present a calculation of the vertical structures and ultraviolet spectra of…
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…
Ultracompact X-ray binaries (UCXBs) appear able to sustain accretion onto the compact accretor at rates lower than in wider X-ray binaries. This may be understood by the smaller accretion disks in UCXBs: a lower X-ray luminosity suffices to…
We critically examine issues associated with determining the fundamental properties of the black hole and the surrounding accretion disk in an X-ray binary based on modeling the disk X-ray continuum of the source. We base our work mainly on…
Symbiotic stars are binary systems where a white dwarf (WD) accretes material from the wind of an evolved, late-type companion. X-ray-emitting symbiotic systems are classified into $\alpha$, $\beta$, $\delta$, and $\beta/\delta$ types,…
We investigate the dependence of observational properties of black hole X-ray binaries on the inclination angle i of their orbits. We find the following: (1) Transient black hole binaries show no trend in their quiescent X-ray luminosities…
A geometrically thin, optically thick, warped accretion disk with a central source of luminosity is subject to non-axisymmetric forces due to radiation pressure; the resulting torque acts to modify the warp. Initially planar accretion disks…
We study a warping instability of a geometrically thin, non-self-gravitating, circumbinary disk around young binary stars on an eccentric orbit. Such a disk is subject to both the tidal torques due to a time-dependent binary potential and…
The outpouring of radiation during an X-ray burst can affect the properties of accretion discs around neutron stars: the corona can cool and collapse, the inner regions can be bled away due to enhanced accretion, and the additional heating…
Accreting X-Ray Binaries display a wide range of behaviours. Some of them are observed to spin up steadily, others to alternate between spin-up and spin-down states, sometimes superimposed on a longer trend of either spin up or spin down.…
Using ASCA observations of several X-ray bursters in the low spectral state Lx~1-5x10^{36} erg/s) restrictions on the parameters of the accretion disk and the boundary layer were obtained. The low state spectra of X-ray bursters observed…
We present three dimensional smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) calculations of irradiation-driven warping of accretion discs. Initially unwarped planar discs are unstable to the radiation reaction when the disc is illuminated by a…
We model the reflected spectrum expected from localized magnetic flares above an ionised accretion disk. We concentrate on the case of very luminous magnetic flares above a standard accretion disk extending down to the last stable orbit,…
The black-hole binary system LMC X-3 has been observed by virtually every X-ray mission since the inception of X-ray astronomy. Among the persistent sources, LMC X-3 is uniquely both habitually soft and highly variable. Using a fully…