Some thermonuclear burst sources exhibit temporary "burst oscillations", periodic variations in the X-ray intensity at frequencies characteristic of each source. It has been shown that these oscillaions trace the neutron star spin, but much is still not known about the detailed mechanism, and many puzzles remain. UvA student Laura Ootes led a comprehensive study of the oscillations detected in the entire Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer sample, which has just been accepted for publication by ApJ. The paper presents a comprehensive comparison of the observed properties with burst oscillation models, as summarised in a series of 14 (!) tweets by co-author Anna Watts. Although we still cannot unambiguously identify the oscillation mechanism, this analysis is going to be definitive for many years, until a new X-ray timing mission is launched.

Read the paper arXiv:1610.08995

Labels: 2016, thermonuclear bursts