Constraints on physics of neutron stars from X-ray observations

Abstract

I summarize some constraints on the physics of neutron stars arising from X-ray observations of the surfaces of neutron stars, focusing on using models of low-magnetic-field neutron star atmospheres to interpret their X-ray spectra. I discuss observations of spectral lines, pulsation profiles, X-ray bursts, radius measurements of transiently accreting neutron stars in quiescence, crust and core cooling measurements of transiently accreting neutron stars, and cooling of young neutron stars. These observations have constrained the neutron star mass and radius (and thus the internal composition, and dense matter equation of state), the superfluidity and neutrino emissivity properties of the core, and the composition and superfluid state of the crust.

Refereed proceedings of XQCD 2012 conference (August 2012), to be published online in the IOP Journal of Physics: Conference Series. 10 pages, 8 figures

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Cited by in corpus (7)

• Rotating Stars in Relativity
• Constraining the Neutron Star Mass-Radius Relation and Dense Matter Equation of State with NICER. I. The Millisecond Pulsar X-ray Data Set
• Constraining the Neutron Star Mass--Radius Relation and Dense Matter Equation of State with NICER. III. Model Description and Verification of Parameter Estimation Codes
• New constraints on the nuclear equation of state from the thermal emission of neutron stars in quiescent low-mass X-ray binaries
• The NuSTAR view of the non-thermal emission from PSR J0437-4715
• On obtaining neutron-star mass and radius constraints from quiescent low-mass X-ray binaries in the Galactic plane
• Search For Gravitational Redshifted Absorption Lines In LMXB Serpens X-1