Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009aas...21333306c&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #213, #333.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.394
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
The neutron star equation of state (EOS) remains enigmatic. In order to improve our understanding of the EOS, we need to further our understanding of neutron star structure. Cooling neutron stars provide us with an observational way of doing this. In quasi-persistent neutron star transients, long outbursts cause the neutron star crust to be heated out of thermal equilibrium with the rest of the star. During quiescence, the crust then cools back down. Such crustal cooling has been observed in two quasi-persistent sources: KS 1731-260 and MXB 1659-29. Here we present an additional Chandra observation of MXB 1659-29 in quiescence, which extends the baseline of monitoring to 6.6 yr after the end of the outburst. This new observation strongly suggests that the crust has thermally relaxed, with the temperature remaining consistent over 1000 days. Fitting the temperature cooling curve with an exponential plus constant model we determine an e-folding timescale of 465 ± 25 days, with the crust cooling to a constant surface effective temperature of kT = 54 ± 2 eV (assuming D = 10 kpc). From this, we infer a core temperature in the range 3.5E7 - 8.3E7 K (assuming D = 10 kpc), with the uncertainty due to the surface composition. Importantly, we tested two neutron star atmosphere models as well as a blackbody model, and found that the thermal relaxation time of the crust is independent of the chosen model and the assumed distance.
Brown Edward
Cackett Edward
Degenaar Nathalie
Miller Jason J.
Wijnands Rudy
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