Relation between the X-ray and Optical Luminosities in Binary Systems with Accreting Nonmagnetic White Dwarfs

We investigate the relation between the optical (g-band) and X-ray (0.5-10 keV) luminosities of accreting nonmagnetic white dwarfs. According to the present-day counts of the populations of star systems in our Galaxy, these systems have the highest space density among the close binary systems with white dwarfs. We show that the dependence of the optical luminosity of accreting white dwarfs on their X-ray luminosity forms a fairly narrow one-parameter curve. The typical half-width of this curve does not exceed 0.2-0.3 dex in optical and X-ray luminosities, which is essentially consistent with the amplitude of the aperiodic flux variability for these objects. At X-ray luminosities Lx~1e32 erg/sec or lower, the optical g-band luminosity of the accretion flow is shown to be related to its X-ray luminosity by a factor ~2-3. At even lower X-ray luminosities (Lx~1e30 erg/sec), the contribution from the photosphere of the white dwarf begins to dominate in the optical spectrum of the binary system and its optical brightness does not drop below Mg~13-14. Using the latter fact, we show that in current and planned X-ray sky surveys, the family of accreting nonmagnetic white dwarfs can be completely identified to the distance determined by the sensitivity of an optical sky survey in this region. For the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) with a limiting sensitivity m_g~22.5, this distance is ~400-600 pcComment: 7 pages, 3 figures, published in Astronomy Letter

Models of neutron star atmospheres enriched with nuclear burning ashes

Low-mass X-ray binaries hosting neutron stars (NS) exhibit thermonuclear (type-I) X-ray bursts, which are powered by unstable nuclear burning of helium and/or hydrogen into heavier elements deep in the NS "ocean". In some cases the burning ashes may rise from the burning depths up to the NS photosphere by convection, leading to the appearance of the metal absorption edges in the spectra, which then force the emergent X-ray burst spectra to shift toward lower energies. These effects may have a substantial impact on the color correction factor $f_c$ and the dilution factor $w$, the parameters of the diluted blackbody model $F_E \approx w B_E(f_c T_{eff})$ that is commonly used to describe the emergent spectra from NSs. The aim of this paper is to quantify how much the metal enrichment can change these factors. We have developed a new NS atmosphere modeling code, which has a few important improvements compared to our previous code required by inclusion of the metals. The opacities and the internal partition functions (used in the ionization fraction calculations) are now taken into account for all atomic species. In addition, the code is now parallelized to counter the increased computational load. We compute a detailed grid of atmosphere models with different exotic chemical compositions that mimic the presence of the burning ashes. From the emerging model spectra we compute the color correction factors $f_c$ and the dilution factors $w$ that can then be compared to the observations. We find that the metals may change $f_c$ by up to about 40%, which is enough to explain the scatter seen in the blackbody radius measurements. The presented models open up the possibility for determining NS mass and radii more accurately, and may also act as a tool to probe the nuclear burning mechanisms of X-ray bursts.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, to be published in A&

High efficiency of soft X-ray radiation reprocessing in supersoft X-ray sources due to multiple scattering

Detailed analysis of the lightcurve of CAL 87 clearly has shown that the high optical luminosity comes from the accretion disc rim and can only be explained by a severe thickening of the disc rim near the location where the accretion stream impinges. This area is irradiated by the X-rays where it faces the white dwarf. Only if the reprocessing rate of X-rays to optical light is high a luminosity as high as observed can be understood. But a recent detailed study of the soft X-ray radiation reprocessing in supersoft X-ray sources has shown that the efficiency is not high enough. We here propose a solution for this problem. As already discussed in the earlier lightcurve analysis the impact of the accretion stream at the outer disc rim produces a ``spray'', consisting of a large number of individual gas blobs imbedded in a surrounding corona. For the high mass flow rate this constitutes an optically thick vertically extended screen at the rim of the accretion disc. We analyse the optical properties of this irradiated spray and find that the multiple scattering between these gas blobs leads to an effective reprocessing of soft X-rays to optical light as required by the observations.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in A&

Neutron star mass and radius measurements from atmospheric model fits to X-ray burst cooling tail spectra

Observations of thermonuclear X-ray bursts from accreting neutron stars (NSs) in low-mass X-ray binary systems can be used to constrain NS masses and radii. Most previous work of this type has set these constraints using Planck function fits as a proxy: both the models and the data are fit with diluted blackbody functions to yield normalizations and temperatures which are then compared against each other. Here, for the first time, we fit atmosphere models of X-ray bursting NSs directly to the observed spectra. We present a hierarchical Bayesian fitting framework that uses state-of-the-art X-ray bursting NS atmosphere models with realistic opacities and relativistic exact Compton scattering kernels as a model for the surface emission. We test our approach against synthetic data, and find that for data that are well-described by our model we can obtain robust radius, mass, distance, and composition measurements. We then apply our technique to Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer observations of five hard-state X-ray bursts from 4U 1702-429. Our joint fit to all five bursts shows that the theoretical atmosphere models describe the data well but there are still some unmodeled features in the spectrum corresponding to a relative error of 1-5% of the energy flux. After marginalizing over this intrinsic scatter, we find that at 68% credibility the circumferential radius of the NS in 4U 1702-429 is R = 12.4+-0.4 km, the gravitational mass is M=1.9+-0.3 Msun, the distance is 5.1 < D/kpc < 6.2, and the hydrogen mass fraction is X < 0.09.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures, submitted to A&

Burst-induced coronal cooling in GS 1826-24 The clock wagging its tail

Type I X-ray bursts in GS 1826-24, and in several other systems, may induce cooling of the hot inner accretion flow that surrounds the bursting neutron star. Given that GS 1826-24 remained persistently in the hard state over the period 2003-2008 and presented regular bursting properties, we stacked the spectra of the X-ray bursts detected by INTEGRAL (JEM-X and ISGRI) and XMM-Newton (RGS) during that period to study the effect of the burst photons on the properties of the Comptonizing medium. The extended energy range provided by these instruments allows the simultaneous observation of the burst and persistent emission spectra. We detect an overall change in the shape of the persistent emission spectrum in response to the burst photon shower. For the first time, we observe simultaneously a drop in the hard X-ray emission, together with a soft X-ray excess with respect to the burst blackbody emission. The hard X-ray drop can be explained by burst-induced coronal cooling, while the bulk of the soft X-ray excess can be described by fitting the burst emission with an atmosphere model, instead of a simple blackbody model. Traditionally, the persistent emission was assumed to be invariant during X-ray bursts, and more recently to change only in normalization but not in spectral shape; the observed change in the persistent emission level during X-ray bursts may thus trigger the revision of existing neutron star mass-radius constraints, as the derived values rely on the assumption that the persistent emission does not change during X-ray bursts. The traditional burst fitting technique leads to up to a 10% overestimation of the bolometric burst flux in GS 1826-24, which significantly hampers the comparisons of the KEPLER and MESA model against this 'textbook burster'

Painlev\'e Transcendent Describes Quantum Correlation Function of the XXZ Antiferromagnet away from the free-fermion point

We consider quantum correlation functions of the antiferromagnetic spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ Heisenberg XXZ spin chain in a magnetic field. We show that for a magnetic field close to the critical field $h_c$ (for the critical magnetic field the ground state is ferromagnetic) certain correlation functions can be expressed in terms of the solution of the Painlev\'e V transcendent. This establishes a relation between solutions of Painlev\'e differential equations and quantum correlation functions in models of {\sl interacting} fermions. Painlev\'e transcendents were known to describe correlation functions in models with free fermionic spectra.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX2

A New Low-Noise Avalanche Photodiode With Micro-Pixel Structure

A new design of the avalanche photodiodes with an array of micro-pixel p-n-junctions was developed on base of metal-oxide-silicon structure. The thermal oxide layer of 1000A thickness contains tunnel oxide regions with about 25A thickness. The device exhibits a noise factor ~ 4 at a high multiplication factor (M~10000). A high space uniformity of sensitivity was found for gain of M~ 1000