Indications for a slow rotator in the Rapid Burster from its thermonuclear bursting behaviour

Abstract

We perform time-resolved spectroscopy of all the type I bursts from the Rapid Burster (MXB 1730-335) detected with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer. Type I bursts are detected at high accretion rates, up to \sim 45% of the Eddington luminosity. We find evidence that bursts lacking the canonical cooling in their time-resolved spectra are, none the less, thermonuclear in nature. The type I bursting rate keeps increasing with the persistent luminosity, well above the threshold at which it is known to abruptly drop in other bursting low-mass X-ray binaries. The only other known source in which the bursting rate keeps increasing over such a large range of mass accretion rates is the 11 Hz pulsar IGR J17480$-$2446. This may indicate a similarly slow spin for the neutron star in the Rapid Burster.

References in corpus (4)

• Thermonuclear (type-I) X-ray bursts observed by the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer
• Superburst Models for Neutron Stars with Hydrogen and Helium-Rich Atmospheres
• Discovery of X-ray burst triplets in EXO 0748-676
• Spectral and timing properties of the accreting X-ray millisecond pulsar IGR J17511-3057

Cited by in corpus (11)

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• A population study of type II bursts in the Rapid Burster
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• Neutron star cooling and the rp process in thermonuclear X-ray bursts
• NinjaSat monitoring of Type-I X-ray bursts from the clocked burster SRGA J144459.2$-$604207
• Disk reflection and energetics from the accreting millisecond pulsar SRGA J144459.2-604207
• New insight into the Rapid Burster by Insight-HXMT
• Connecting the m-dots: accretion rates and thermonuclear burst recurrence times on neutron stars and white dwarfs
• A candidate to the long sought optical counterpart to the Rapid Burster in the bulge fossil fragment Liller 1
• Recurrent Instability in LMXB Accretion Disks: How Strange is GRS 1915+105?