Transient Low-Mass X-Ray Binaries in Quiescence
Abstract
We summarize the quiescent X-ray observations of transient low-mass X-ray binaries. These observations show that, in quiescence, binaries containing black holes are fainter than those containing neutron stars. This has triggered a number of theoretical ideas about what causes the quiescent X-ray emission. For black hole binaries, the options are accretion onto the black hole or coronal emission from the rapidly rotating stellar companion. There are more possibilities for the neutron stars: accretion, thermal emission from the surface or non-thermal emission from a "turned-on" radio pulsar. We review recent theoretical work on these mechanisms and note where current observations can distinguish between them. We highlight the re-analysis of the quiescent neutron star emission by Rutledge and collaborators that showed thermal emission to be a predominant contributor in many of these systems. Our knowledge of these binaries is bound to dramatically improve now that the Chandra and XMM satellites are operating successfully.
Additional Information
We thank Ed Brown, George Pavlov and Slava Zavlin for the collaboration on much of this work.We are grateful to Ed Brown for preparing Fig. 3. This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation through Grant NSF94-0174 and NASA via grant NAG5-3239. L.B. is a Cottrell Scholar of the Research Corporation.Attached Files
Accepted Version - 0005364.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 54964
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20150218-155519302
- NSF
- AST 94-0174
- NASA
- NAG5-3239
- Cottrell Scholar of Research Corporation
- Created
-
2022-11-28Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2023-06-01Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Space Radiation Laboratory
- Other Numbering System Name
- Space Radiation Laboratory
- Other Numbering System Identifier
- 2000-03