Manoneeta Chakraborty

EVIDENCE OF THERMONUCLEAR FLAME SPREADING ON NEUTRON STARS FROM BURST RISE OSCILLATIONS

Burst oscillations during the rising phases of thermonuclear X-ray bursts are usually believed to originate from flame spreading on the neutron star surface. However, the decrease of fractional oscillation amplitude with rise time, which provides a main observational support for the flame spreading model, have so far been reported from only a few bursts. Moreover, the non-detection and intermittent detections of rise oscillations from many bursts are not yet understood considering the flame spreading scenario. Here, we report the decreasing trend of fractional oscillation amplitude from an extensive analysis of a large sample of Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer Proportional Counter Array bursts from ten neutron star low-mass X-ray binaries. This trend is 99.99% significant for the best case, which provides, to the best of our knowledge, by far the strongest evidence of such trend. Moreover, it is important to note that an opposite trend is not found from any of the bursts. The concave shape of the fractional amplitude profiles for all the bursts suggests latitude-dependent flame speeds, possibly due to the effects of the Coriolis force. We also systematically study the roles of low fractional amplitude and low count rate for non-detection and intermittent detections of rise oscillations, and attempt to understand them within the flame spreading scenario. Our results support a weak turbulent viscosity for flame spreading, and imply that burst rise oscillations originate from an expanding hot spot, thus making these oscillations a more reliable tool to constrain the neutron star equations of state.

Magnetar-like x-ray bursts from a rotation-powered pulsar, PSR J1119-6127

Two energetic hard X-ray bursts have recently triggered the Fermi and Swift space observatories from the rotation powered pulsar, PSR J1119-6127. We have performed in depth spectral and temporal analyses of these two events. Our extensive searches in both observatory data for lower luminosity bursts uncovered 10 additional events from the source. We report here on the timing and energetics of the 12 bursts from PSR J1119-6127 during its burst active phase of 2016 July 26 and 28. We also found a spectral softer X-ray flux enhancement in a post burst episode, which shows evidence of cooling. We discuss here the implications of these results on the nature of this unusual high-field radio pulsar, which firmly place it within the typical magnetar population.

X-ray Bursts from the Terzan 5 Transient IGR J17480-2446: Nuclear Rather than Gravitational

The 2010 outburst of the transient neutron star low-mass X-ray binary IGR J17480-2446 has exhibited a series of unique X-ray bursts as well as millihertz (mHz) quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) related to these bursts. It has been recently proposed that these are type-II bursts, powered by the gravitational energy. This implies that the current nuclear-burning-based model of mHz QPOs is not correct, and this timing feature cannot be used as a tool to measure the neutron star parameters. We report the analysis of the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer data of IGR J17480-2446 to show that the burst properties of this source are quite different from the properties of the type-II bursts observed from the rapid burster and GRO J1744-28. For example, the inferred ratio (~50-90) of the non-burst fluence to burst fluence is consistent with the thermonuclear origin of IGR J17480-2446 bursts and is significantly different from this ratio (4) for type-II bursts. Our results suggest that the bursts and the mHz QPOs from IGR J17480-2446 are powered by the nuclear energy.

Thermonuclear X-ray bursts from the 401-Hz accreting pulsar IGR J17498−2921: indication of burning in confined regions

We use the 2011 Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) Proportional Counter Array (PCA) data of the 401-Hz accreting pulsar and burster IGR J17498−2921 to perform timing analysis and time-resolved spectroscopy of 12 thermonuclear X-ray bursts. We confirm previously reported burst oscillations from this source with a much higher significance (8.8σ ). We note that the bursts can be divided into three groups: big photospheric radius expansion (PRE) bursts are about 10 times more luminous than medium bursts, while the latter are about 10 times more luminous than small bursts. The PCA field of view of these observations contains several known bursters, and hence some of the observed bursts might not be from IGR J17498−2921. The oscillations during big bursts at the known pulsar frequency show that these bursts were definitely from IGR J17498−2921. We find that at least several of the other bursts were also likely originated from IGR J17498−2921. Spectral analysis reveals that the luminosity differences among various bursts are primarily due to differences in normalizations, and not temperatures, even when we consider the effects of colour factor. This shows burning on a fraction of the stellar surface for those small and medium bursts, which originated from IGR J17498−2921. The low values of the upper limits of burst oscillation amplitude for these bursts suggest a small angle between the spin axis and the magnetic axis. We find indications of the PRE nature of a medium burst, which likely originated from IGR J17498−2921. If true, then, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that two PRE bursts with a peak count rate ratio of as high as ≈12 have been detected from the same source.

Accretion Disks and Coronae in the X-Ray Flashlight

Plasma accreted onto the surface of a neutron star can ignite due to unstable thermonuclear burning and produce a bright flash of X-ray emission called a Type-I X-ray burst. Such events are very common; thousands have been observed to date from over a hundred accreting neutron stars. The intense, often Eddington-limited, radiation generated in these thermonuclear explosions can have a discernible effect on the surrounding accretion flow that consists of an accretion disk and a hot electron corona. Type-I X-ray bursts can therefore serve as direct, repeating probes of the internal dynamics of the accretion process. In this work we review and interpret the observational evidence for the impact that Type-I X-ray bursts have on accretion disks and coronae. We also provide an outlook of how to make further progress in this research field with prospective experiments and analysis techniques, and by exploiting the technical capabilities of the new and concept X-ray missions ASTROSAT, NICER, Insight-HXMT, eXTP, and STROBE-X.

Variation of spectral and timing properties in the extended burst tails from the magnetar 4U 0142+61

Extended emission episodes with intensity above the pre-burst level are observed following magnetar bursts from a number of soft gamma repeaters (SGRs) and anomalous X-ray pulsars (AXPs). Such extended tail emission were observed subsequent to two events detected from AXP 4U 0142+61. We investigated in detail the evolution of spectral and temporal properties during these two tail segments using RXTE/PCA observations, and report distinct variations both in the spectral and temporal behavior throughout the tails. In particular, sudden enhancement of pulsation amplitude in conjunction with bursts, and smooth decline of X-ray emission (cooling) during the tail were observed in both cases. We suggest that an inefficiently radiating trapped fireball formed during the burst, which can heat up the stellar surface, is able to explain the tail properties and its energetics. We also present the episodic detection of absorption and emission features during tails. One possible mechanism that has been proposed to give rise to such spectral lines is the proton/ion cyclotron resonance process which has been suggested to offer a valuable tool in probing the complex magnetic field of magnetars.

Burst Tails from SGR J1550–5418 Observed with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer

We present the results of our extensive search using the Bayesian block method for long tails following short bursts from a magnetar, SGR J1550-5418, over all RXTE observations of the source. We identified four bursts with extended tails, most of which occurred during its 2009 burst active episode. The durations of tails range between similar to 13 s and over 3 ks, which are much longer than the typical duration of bursts. We performed detailed spectral and temporal analyses of the burst tails. We find that the spectra of three tails show a thermal nature with a trend of cooling throughout the tail. We compare the results of our investigations with the properties of four other extended tails detected from SGR 1900+14 and SGR 1806-20. and suggest a scenario for the origin of the tail in the framework of the magnetar model.

Time- and Energy-dependent Characteristics of Thermonuclear Burst Oscillations

We have investigated temporal and spectral properties of a large sample of thermonuclear bursts with oscillations from eight different sources with spin frequencies varying from 270 to 620 Hz. For our sample we chose those bursts, for which the oscillation is sufficiently strong and of relatively long duration. The emission from the hot-spot that is formed during a thermonuclear burst is modulated by several physical processes and the burst oscillation profiles unavoidably carry signatures of these. In order to probe these mechanisms, we examined the amplitude and phase lags of the burst oscillations with energy. We also studied the frequency variation of oscillations during these thermonuclear bursts. We observed that the frequency drifts are more frequent in the cases where the spin frequency is lower. We found that the phase lag of the burst oscillations shows no systematic evolution with energy between the bursts, and also in between different sources. In 7 cases, we do indeed observe lag of soft energy photons, while there are a significant number of cases for which hard lag or no lag is observed.

AN EXTRAORDINARY OUTBURST OF THE MAGNETAR SWIFT J1822.3–1606

The 2011 outburst of Swift J1822.3–1606 was extraordinary; periodic modulations at the spin period of the underlying neutron star were clearly visible, remarkably similar to what is observed during the decaying tail of magnetar giant flares. We investigated the temporal characteristics of X-ray emission during the early phases of the outburst. We performed a periodicity search with the spectral hardness ratio (HR) and found a coherent signal near the spin period of the neutron star, but with a lag of about 3 radians. Therefore, the HR is strongly anti-correlated with the X-ray intensity, which is also seen in the giant flares. We studied the time evolution of the pulse profile and found that it evolves from a complex morphology to a much simpler shape within about a month. Pulse profile simplification also takes place during the giant flares, but on a much shorter timescale of about a few minutes. We found that the amount of energy emitted during the first 25 days of the outburst is comparable to what was detected in minutes during the decaying tail of giant flares. Based on these similarities, we suggest that the triggering mechanisms of the giant flares and the magnetar outbursts are likely the same. We propose that the trapped fireball that develops in the magnetosphere at the onset of the outburst radiates away efficiently in minutes in magnetars exhibiting giant flares, while in other magnetars, such as Swift J1822.3–1606, the efficiency of radiation of the fireball is not as high and, therefore, lasts much longer.