Indications for a slow rotator in the Rapid Burster from its thermonuclear bursting behaviour
Abstract
We perform time-resolved spectroscopy of all the type I bursts from the Rapid Burster (MXB 1730-335) detected with the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer. Type I bursts are detected at high accretion rates, up to ≃45 per cent of the Eddington luminosity. We find evidence that bursts lacking the canonical cooling in their time-resolved spectra are, nonetheless, thermonuclear in nature. The type I bursting rate keeps increasing with the persistent luminosity, well above the threshold at which it is known to abruptly drop in other bursting low-mass X-ray binaries. The only other known source in which the bursting rate keeps increasing over such a large range of mass accretion rates is the 11 Hz pulsar IGR J17480-2446. This may indicate a similarly slow spin for the neutron star in the Rapid Burster.
- Publication:
-
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Pub Date:
- May 2013
- DOI:
- 10.1093/mnras/stt312
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1302.4286
- Bibcode:
- 2013MNRAS.431.1947B
- Keywords:
-
- stars: neutron;
- X-rays: binaries;
- X-rays: bursts;
- X-rays: individual: MXB 1730-335;
- Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
- E-Print:
- doi:10.1093/mnras/stt312