Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Apr 2002
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002aps..apr.u2001k&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
In many X-ray point sources on the sky, the X-ray emission arises because hydrogen and/or helium is accreted from a non-degenerate star onto a neutron star. When this matter settles on the neutron star surface, it will undergo nuclear fusion. For a large range of physical parameters, the fusion is unstable. The resulting thermonuclear explosions last from seconds to minutes. They are observed as short flares in X-rays and are called `X-ray bursts'. Recently, a handful hours-long X-ray flares have been found in six X-ray burst sources with the BeppoSAX/WFC, RXTE/ASM and RXTE/PCA. They share all characteristics with the X-ray bursts, except that they last one to two orders of magnitude longer (hence they are referred to as `superbursts'). This can not be understood in the context of the standard nuclear fusion picture mentioned above. Instead, the superbursts are thought to be related to the unstable burning of the leftovers from the hydrogen and/or helium fusion. I will discuss the observational properties of these superbursts.
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