The remarkable RXTE observations of the Rapid Burster
The Rapid Burster is a neutron-star binary that exhibits singular behaviour;
extremely frequent "type-II" X-ray bursts, which cannot be thermonuclear in
origin. The standard explanation of these bursts is that they arise from
episodic accretion onto the neutron star, and it is this accretion which also
fuels the (mostly) independent thermonuclear (type-I) bursts. The
Rossi X-ray Timing
Explorer</a> made many observations (totalling 2.4 Ms, or almost a month
of continuous observing!) of the source over multiple transient
outbursts throughout the mission lifetime, building
up an impressive database of burst behaviour.
SRON PhD student Tullio Bagnoli, having
already made a detailed study of the thermonuclear events in this source, has
now completed a study of the type-II events, examining the demographics of the
almost 8500 bursts detected by RXTE. The singular behaviour of this
source may be explained by a special combination of magnetic field strength,
stellar spin period and alignment between the magnetic field and the spin axis.
Tullio's paper was just accepted by MNRAS.
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Read the paper arXiv:1502.03941