Neutron Stars in X-ray Binaries and their Environments

Abstract

Neutron stars in X-ray binary systems are fascinating objects that display a wide range of timing and spectral phenomena in the X-rays. Not only parameters of the neutron stars, like magnetic field strength and spin period evolve in their active binary phase, the neutron stars also affect the binary systems and their immediate surroundings in many ways. Here we discuss some aspects of the interactions of the neutron stars with their environments that are revelaed from their X-ray emission. We discuss some recent developments involving the process of accretion onto high magnetic field neutron stars: accretion stream structure and formation, shape of pulse profile and its changes with accretion torque. Various recent studies of reprocessing of X-rays in the accretion disk surface, vertical structures of the accretion disk and wind of companion star are also discussed here. The X-ray pulsars among the binary neutron stars provide excellent handle to make accurate measurement of the orbital parameters and thus also evolution of the binray orbits that take place over time scale of a fraction of a million years to tens of millions of years. The orbital period evolution of X-ray binaries have shown them to be rather complex systems. Orbital evolution of X-ray binaries can also be carried out from timing of the X-ray eclipses and there have been some surprising results in that direction, including orbital period glitches in two X-ray binaries and possible detection of the most massive circum-binary planet around a Low Mass X-ray Binary.

Has appeared in Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy special issue on 'Physics of Neutron Stars and Related Objects', celebrating the 75th birth-year of G. Srinivasan

References in corpus (15)

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• The ephemeris, orbital decay, and masses of 10 eclipsing HMXBs
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• An XMM-Newton view of FeKα in HMXBs
• Eclipse Timings of the Transient Low Mass X-ray Binary EXO0748-676. IV. The Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer Eclipses
• Stellar Wind Accretion in GX301-2: Evidence for a High-density Stream
• Multiwavelength Observations of EXO 0748-676 - I. Reprocessing of X-ray Bursts
• Extremely fast orbital decay of the black hole X-ray binary Nova Muscae 1991
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• Variations in the pulsation and spectral characteristics of OAO 1657-415
• The Puzzling Negative Orbit-Period Derivative of the Low-Mass X-Ray Binary 4U 1820-30 in NGC 6624
• A study of the long term evolution of quasi periodic oscillations in the accretion powered X-ray pulsar 4U 1626-67
• Burst Fluence Distributions of Soft Gamma Repeaters 1806-20 and 1900+14 in the RXTE PCA era
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• Post-flare Formation of the Accretion Stream and a Dip in Pulse Profiles of LMC X-4

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Triage of the Gaia DR3 astrometric orbits. I. A sample of binaries with probable compact companions
• Probable Dormant Neutron Star in a Short-Period Binary System
• Burst-Disk Interaction in 4U 1636-536 as observed by NICER
• Searches for Pulsar-like Candidates from Unidentified Objects in the Third Catalog of Hard Fermi-LAT (3FHL) sources with Machine Learning Techniques
• A New Measurement of the Spin and Orbital Parameters of the High Mass X-ray Binary Centaurus X-3 using AstroSat
• Broadband study of the Be X-ray binary RX J0520.5-6932 during its outburst in 2024
• Spectral analysis of ultraluminous X-ray pulsars with models of X-ray pulsars