Vaporizing neutron stars in low-mass x-ray binaries and the statistics of millisecond pulsars
- California Univ., Livermore, CA (United States). Inst. of Geophysics and Planetary Physics
Recent data on low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) and msec pulsars (MSPs) pose a challenge to evolutionary which neglect the effects of disk and companion irradiation. Here we discuss the main features of a radiation-driven (RD) evolutionary model that may be applicable to several LMXBs. According to this model, irradiation from the accreting compact star LMXBs vaporizes'' the accretion disk and the companion star by driving a self-sustained mass loss until a sudden accretion-turn of occurs. The main characteristics of the RD-evolution are: (1) the lifetime of RD-LMXB's is of order 10{sup 7} years or less: (2) both the orbital period gap and the X-ray luminosity may be consequences of RD-evolution of LMXB's containing lower main sequence and degenerate companion stars; (3) the companion star may transfer mass to the primary even if it underfills its Roche lobe; (4) the recycled msec pulsar can continue to vaporize the low-mass companion star even after the accretion turn-off produced by a strong pulsar wind; (5) the RD-evolutionary model resolves the apparent statistical discrepancy between the number of MSP's and their LMXB progenitors. 14 refs., 1 fig., 1 tab.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 5104814
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-JC-108045; CONF-9009432-1; ON: DE92001894
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Neutron stars: an interdisciplinary field Agia Pelagia, Crete (Greece), 3-14 Sep 1990
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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GENERAL PHYSICS
NEUTRON STARS
EVAPORATION
PULSARS
STATISTICS
BINARY STARS
COSMIC X-RAY SOURCES
COSMIC RADIO SOURCES
COSMIC RAY SOURCES
MATHEMATICS
PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS
STARS
640102* - Astrophysics & Cosmology- Stars & Quasi-Stellar
Radio & X-Ray Sources