The World of Compact Objects as Revealed by RXTE's Observations

Other

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

Scientific paper

The world of compact objects is very dynamic. White dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes are rotating and accreting matter has high velocity and inhomogeneous radiation patterns. From all of these RXTE has seen variations in X-ray flux and spectra. This has allowed visualization of flow onto hot spots on white dwarfs, determination that neutron stars lie inside the relativistically stable orbits of matter around them, and the conclusion that a binary black hole in microquasars is spinning rapidly. Variations of massive black holes in active galaxies are also measured. Before RXTE (Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer), the rotations of the neutron stars in most low mass X-ray binaries had not been seen. The QPO doublet and the evanescent oscillations during thermonuclear flash bursts, that were discovered with RXTE, appear to confirm the prediction of General Relativity that minimum stable orbits exist. They should determine masses and radii of neutron stars which have accreted several tenths of a solar mass since formation. The still unique coherent persistent fast pulsar has a magnetic field appropriate for a precursor of millisecond radio pulsars, although fields of others may be smaller. Low frequency quasi-periodic variations are seen in high inclination systems, suggesting structure in the accretion disk outside the magnetosphere. RXTE observations of a dozen black hole transients have further defined a pattern of characteristics of accretion onto black holes. Coordinated radio observations show that outflows of radio emitting electrons are associated with the harder spectral states. For five of the black hole candidates, a frequency appropriate to innermost stable orbits is observed. While these signals differ from those of the neutron stars, the recent discovery that two high frequencies are observed in one of these targets is a very important new clue to a possibly unified picture.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

The World of Compact Objects as Revealed by RXTE's Observations does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with The World of Compact Objects as Revealed by RXTE's Observations, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and The World of Compact Objects as Revealed by RXTE's Observations will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1184075

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.