Large frequency drifts during Type I X-ray bursts

Abstract

We study the spin-down of a neutron star atmosphere during the Type I X-ray burst in low mass X-ray binaries. Using polar cap acceleration models, we show that the resulting stellar ``wind'' torque on the burning shell due to the flowing charged particles (electrons, protons and ions) from the star's polar caps may change the shell's angular momentum during the burst. We conclude that the net change in the angular momentum of the star's atmosphere can account for rather large frequency drifts observed during Type I X-ray burst.

8 pages, more discussion added

References in corpus (5)

• Nuclear-Powered Millisecond Pulsars and the Maximum Spin Frequency of Neutron Stars
• Pulsar Polar Cap Heating and Surface Thermal X-Ray Emission II. Inverse Compton Radiation Pair Fronts
• Regimes of Pulsar Pair Formation and Particle Energetics
• A Search for Pulsars in Quiescent Soft X-Ray Transients. I
• The Bursting Behavior of 4U 1728-34: Parameters of a Neutron Star and Geometry of a NS-disk system