English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

A number of neutron star low-mass X-ray binaries have recently beendiscovered to show broad, asymmetric Fe K emission lines in their X-rayspectra. These lines are generally thought to be the most prominent part of areflection spectrum, originating in the inner part of the accretion disk wherestrong relativistic effects can broaden emission lines. We present acomprehensive, systematic analysis of Suzaku and XMM-Newton spectra of 10neutron star low-mass X-ray binaries, all of which display broad Fe K emissionlines. Of the 10 sources, 4 are Z sources, 4 are atolls and 2 are accretingmillisecond X-ray pulsars (also atolls). The Fe K lines are well fit by arelativistic line model for a Schwarzschild metric, and imply a narrow range ofinner disk radii (6 - 15 GM/c^2) in most cases. This implies that the accretiondisk extends close to the neutron star surface over a range of luminosities.Continuum modeling shows that for the majority of observations, a blackbodycomponent (plausibly associated with the boundary layer) dominates the X-rayemission from 8 - 20 keV. Thus it appears likely that this spectral componentproduces the majority of the ionizing flux that illuminates the accretion disk.Therefore, we also fit the spectra with a blurred reflection model, wherein ablackbody component illuminates the disk. This model fits well in most cases,supporting the idea that the boundary layer is illuminating a geometricallythin disk.

Relativistic Lines and Reflection from the Inner Accretion Disks Around Neutron Stars