The population of Galactic X-ray bursters as seen by INTEGRAL over 14 years in Space

Type-I X-ray bursts are thermonuclear explosions on the surface of weakly magnetized accreting neutron stars (NS) in Low-Mass X-ray Binary (LMXB) systems where the mass donor is typically an evolved star. Observationally, X-ray bursts can show a large variety in profiles, but generally they exhibit a fast rise and a longer, usually power-law like, decay. Burst rise times vary from less than a second to 10 s, and decay times are in the range of seconds to minutes. Bursts radiate X-ray spectra with blackbody shapes, (kT _ 3 keV) that cool during the burst decay.The Joint European Monitor for X-rays (JEM-X) onboard INTEGRAL is a coded-mask instrument operating in the 3-35 keV energy range, where the bulk of the X-ray burst energy is released. JEM-X provides a fully-coded field of view of 4.8 _ 4.8 degrees, which allows concurrent monitoring of several X-ray bursters in one pointing. In this talk I will provide an overview of the results of 14 years of INTEGRAL observations of the population of Galactic X-ray bursters.