2006/07/11 by D. K. Galloway, Duncan Galloway, A. Cumming +1 · 134 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Accretion (finance) #Astronomy #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Atomic physics #Flux (metallurgy) #Helium #High-pressure geophysics and materials #Metallicity #Millisecond pulsar #Neutron star #Nuclear physics #Physics #Plasma #Pulsar #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #RADIUS #Stars #Thermonuclear fusion #White dwarf #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/507598
published in The Astrophysical Journal 652(1), 559-568 (IOP Publishing) · 10 pages, 6 figures, accepted by ApJ
arxiv created 2006/07/11 · openalex publication_date 2006/11/16 · arxiv updated 2011/02/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We analyzed Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer observations of the accretion-powered 401 Hz pulsar SAX J1808.4-3658, in order to precisely determine the source distance. While the fluences for the five transient outbursts observed from 1996 were constant to within the uncertainties, the outburst interval varied significantly, so that the time-averaged flux (and accretion rate) decreased by around 40%. By equating the time-averaged X-ray flux with the expected mass transfer rate from gravitational radiation, we derived a lower limit on the distance of 3.4 kpc. Combined with an upper limit from assuming that the four radius-expansion thermonuclear bursts observed during the 2002 October outburst reached at most the Eddington limit for a pure He atmosphere, we found that the probable distance range for the source is 3.4-3.6 kpc. The implied inclination, based on the optical/IR properties of the counterpart, is i ≲ 30°. We compared the properties of the bursts with an ignition model. The time between bursts was long enough for hot CNO burning to significantly deplete the accreted hydrogen, so that ignition occurred in a pure helium layer underlying a stable hydrogen-burning shell. This is the first time that this burning regime has been securely observationally identified. The observed energetics of the bursts give a mean hydrogen fraction at ignition of ⟨ X ⟩ ≈ 0.1, and require that the accreted hydrogen fraction X 0 and the CNO metallicity Z CNO are related by Z CNO ≈ 0.03( X 0 /0.7) 2 . We show that in this burning regime, a measurement of the burst recurrence time and energetics allows the local accretion rate onto the star to be determined independently of the accreted composition, giving a new method for estimating the source distance that is in good agreement with our other estimates.