Quiescent thermal emission of neutron stars in LMXBs

27 Mar 2014, 15:30
15m

Speaker

Dr Deborah Aguilera (Deutsches Zentrum fuer Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V., Bremen, Germany)

Description

The theoretical modeling of the thermal relaxation of the neutron star crust in low mass X-ray binaries may be used to establish constraints on the crust and envelope composition and transport properties, depending on the astrophysical scenarios assumed. I will show numerical simulations of the neutron star crust thermal evolution and compare them with inferred surface temperatures for five sources: MXB 1659-29, KS 1731-260, EXO 0748-676, XTE J1701-462 and IGR J17480-2446. I will also present stationary envelope models to be used as a boundary condition for the crustal cooling models, showing how to set constraints to the envelope composition depending on the accretion mass rate. The evolution of MXB 1659-29, KS 1731-260 and EXO 0748-676 can be well described within a deep crustal cooling scenario while XTE J1701-462 and IGR J17480-2446 can only be explained with models beyond crustal cooling, for which I will present alternative scenarios.

Primary author

Dr Deborah Aguilera (Deutsches Zentrum fuer Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V., Bremen, Germany)

Presentation materials