Variability in the Effective Temperature of Quiescent Neutron Star Transi ents

Details Variability in the Effective Temperature of Quiescent Neutron Star Transi ents Variability in the Effective Temperature of Quiescent Neutron Star Transi ents

Apr 2002

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002aps..aprs11008b&link_type=abstract

American Physical Society, April Meeting, Jointly Sponsored with the High Energy Astrophysics Division (HEAD) of the American As

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Scientific paper

We examine how the varying atmospheric composition of a accreting transient neutron star affects its quiescent thermal luminosity. During an outburst, the neutron star in a soft X-ray transient accretes hydrogen (H) and helium (He), which then burn via the rp-process to heavier species (up to ^104Ru) during a type I X-ray burst. The composition of the atmosphere during quiescence thus depends on how much H and He were accreted following the last type I X-ray burst before quiescence, and on how much H was stably consumed by the HCNO cycle as the accretion rate decreased. While the core temperature is unchanging over a timescale > 10^4 yr, the effective temperature depends on the thermal gradient through the H, He and ash layers, and in particular depends strongly on the depth of the layer of residual H/He. We calculate the possible variation in effective temperature and find that it can vary by a factor of 2 from one quiescent epoch to another. This may contribute to the variability in the quiescent luminosity observed from transients such as Aql X-1 and Cen X-4.

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