Propeller-Effect Interpretation of MAXI/GSC Light Curves of 4U 1608-52 and AqlX-1 and application to XTE J1701-462

Abstract

We present the luminosity dwell-time distributions during the hard states of low-mass X-ray binaries containing a neutron star, 4U 1608-52 and AqlX-1, observed with MAXI/GSC. The luminosity distributions show a steep cut-off in the low-luminosity side at $\sim 1.0\times 10^{36}$ erg s${}^{-1}$ in both the two sources. The cut-off implies a rapid luminosity decrease in their outburst decay phases, and the feature can be interpreted as due the propeller effect. We estimated the surface magnetic field of the neutron star to be (0.5--1.6) $\times 10^8$ G in 4U 1608-52 and (0.6--1.9) $\times 10^8$ G in AqlX-1 from the cut-off luminosity. We applied the same propeller mechanism to the similar rapid luminosity decrease observed in the transient Z-source, XTE J1701-462, with RXTE/ASM. Assuming that spin period of the neutron star is in the order of milliseconds, the observed cut-off luminosity deduces surface magnetic field in the order of $10^9$ G.

14 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (9)

• Thermonuclear (type-I) X-ray bursts observed by the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer
• RXTE observations of the first transient Z source XTE J1701-462: shedding new light on mass accretion in luminous neutron star LMXBs
• Rapid Cooling of the Neutron Star in the Quiescent Super-Eddington Transient XTE J1701-462
• Outburst Morphology in the Soft X-ray Transient Aquila X-1
• Type I X-ray Bursts from the Neutron-star Transient XTE J1701-462
• Mining the Aql X-1 long term X-ray light curve
• Mass transfer during low mass X-ray transient decays
• Simplified Picture of Low Mass X-ray Binaries based on Data from Aql X-1 and 4U1608-52
• Slow and Fast Transitions in the Rising Phase of Outbursts from NS-LMXB transients, AqlX-1 and 4U1608-52

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