Diagnosing the burst influence upon accretion in the clocked burster GS 1826--238

Abstract

Type-I X-ray bursts on the surface of a neutron star are a unique probe to the accretion in X-ray binary systems. However, we know little about the feedback of the burst emission upon accretion. Hard X-ray shortages and enhancements of the persistent emission at soft X-rays have been observed. To put these findings in context with the aim of understanding the possible mechanism underneath, we investigated 68 bursts seen by RXTE from the clocked burster GS 1826--238. We diagnosed jointly the burst influence at both soft and hard X-rays, and found that the observations can be described as the CompTT model with variable normalization, electron temperature and optical depth. Putting these results in a scenario of coronal Compton cooling via the burst emission would lead to a shortage of the cooling power, which may suggest that additional consideration like the influence of the burst on the corona formation should be accounted for as well.

14 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

References in corpus (7)

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• X-ray bursting neutron star atmosphere models using an exact relativistic kinetic equation for Compton scattering
• The effect of accretion on the measurement of neutron star mass and radius in the low-mass X-ray binary 4U 1608-52
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• Supermassive Black Hole in an Elliptical Galaxy: Accretion of a Hot Gas with a Low but Finite Angular Momentum

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• Burst-induced coronal cooling in GS 1826-24 The clock wagging its tail
• Variable spreading layer in 4U 1608-52 during thermonuclear X-ray bursts in the soft state
• Probing spectral and temporal evolution of the neutron star low-mass X-ray binary 4U 1724-30 with AstroSat
• On the impact of an intermediate duration X-ray burst on the accretion environment in IGR J17062-6143