A Group of Intense Outbursts in the Rapid Burster

Physics

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Scientific paper

We present an analysis of the remarkable and specific group of six intense outbursts of the unique low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB) Rapid Burster (MXB1730-335). We offer the physical interpretation of the exponential decay of these outbursts in terms of irradiation of the disk by X-rays strong enough to ionize all of the disk out to its outer edge without self-shadowing, according to the models by King and Ritter (1998) and Truss et al. (2002). We argue that the parameters of irradiation must reproduce with a high degree of accuracy for all these six events and that the difference between the outbursts analysed here and those displaying type II bursts lie in the conditions for irradiation of the disk. We bring arguments that when type II bursts occur, the radiation field becomes largely anisotropic, which reduces the irradiation of the disk. We show that a large fraction of mass of the disk is accreted onto the neutron star during outburst of the Rapid Burster, and confirm thus the suggestion of King and Ritter (1998) that the disk is considerably depleted during outburst if the irradiation is this strong. This is in variance with dwarf novae in which the fraction of matter accreted from the disk during a single outburst is only about 5-10 percent. The very fast rise of outbursts is consistent with an evaporated inner disk region and a large radius of the advection-dominated flow prior to the outburst. We put the parameters of outbursts in the Rapid Burster into a system using a comparison with a representative group of outbursts in SXTs by Chen et al. (1997). We also bring argument for a relatively weak magnetic field of the neutron star in this system and against a significant role of the propeller effect. We argue that the orbital period is longer than 1.5 hr; in an extreme case, this system may lie inside the period gap of LMXBs but it does not belongs to the group of ultra-compact LMXBs. Our results enable a deeper insight into the processes in this unique system.

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