Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Sep 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006head....9.0137p&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, HEAD meeting #9, #1.37; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.335
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Several long Type I X-ray bursts of roughly 1000 s duration have been observed recently from neutron stars in low-mass X-ray binaries accreting at very sub-Eddington rates. We construct numerical models to study the unstable ignition of accreted H in such systems. At these low rates, sedimentation of CNO can stratify the envelope prior to ignition. We propose that there is a range of mass accretion rates at which the accreted matter on the surface of a neutron star generates weak hydrogen flashes (peak luminosity less than 0.1 Eddington), which gradually build up a massive He layer. It is the unstable ignition of the He layer that is observed as the long X-ray burst. We present calculations of the accumulation of the H/He layer, including sedimentation, and show preliminary calculations of the flashes using a 1-D, multizone code.
This work is supported by the U.S. DOE grant B523820, the NSF grant AST-0507456, the DOE Program for Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC; DE-FC02-01ER41176), and by the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics under NSF-PFC grant PHY 02-16783. In part, this work was carried out under the auspices of the National Nuclear Security Administration of the U.S. DOE at Los Alamos National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC52-06NA25396.
Brown Edward
Heger Alexander
Peng Fang
No associations
LandOfFree
Weak Hydrogen Flashes on Accreting Neutron Stars 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 Weak Hydrogen Flashes on Accreting Neutron Stars, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Weak Hydrogen Flashes on Accreting Neutron Stars will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-776367