2024/11/14 by Martín Nava-Callejas, Y. Cavecchi, Nava-Callejas, Martin +3 · 1 citation
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) #Mechanics and Biomechanics Studies #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2411.09843
openalex publication_date 2024/11/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
One long standing tension between theory and observations of Type I X-ray burst is the accretion rate at which the burst disappear due to stabilization of the nuclear burning that powers them. This is observed to happen at roughly one third of the theoretical expectations. Various solutions have been proposed, the most notable of which is the addition of a yet unknown source of heat in the upper layers of the crust, below the burning envelope. In this paper we ran several simulations using the 1D code MESA to explore the impact of opacity on the threshold mass accretion rate after which the bursts disappear, finding that a higher than expected opacity in the less dense layers near the surface has a stabilizing effect.