Bibcode
Linares, Manuel; Altamirano, D.; Chakrabarty, D.; Cumming, A.; Keek, L.
Referencia bibliográfica
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #219, #217.01
Advertised on:
1
2012
Número de citas
0
Número de citas referidas
0
Descripción
Different nuclear burning regimes are predicted on accreting neutron
stars (NSs) depending mainly -but not only- on the amount of mass
accreted on the NS per unit time and area. We present X-ray observations
of a rapidly accreting 11 Hz pulsar in the globular cluster Terzan 5
that reveal four distinct thermonuclear bursting regimes. In one of them
we find a steep (inverse cubic) relation between burst recurrence time
and inferred mass accretion rate. We also report the discovery and
detailed analysis of mHz quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) from the
same NS, usually interpreted as marginally stable burning. We compare
the unique burst and mHz QPO properties of this system to previous
observations and to models of burst ignition near the helium burning
stability boundary, and find new constraints on the heat sources present
in the NS envelope. Finally, we discuss the potential impact of the NS
magnetic field and spin on the expected burning regimes in the context
of this particular system, which bridges the gap between accreting NSs
in high- and low-mass X-ray binaries.