Discovery of millihertz oscillations in XTE J1701-462

Paper Title:

Discovery of millihertz Quasi-Periodic Oscillations in the Low Mass X-Ray Binary XTE J1701$-$462 from a Search of the RXTE Legacy data set

Published on:

11 September 2023

Primary Category:

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Paper Authors:

Kaho Tse,

Duncan K. Galloway,

Alexander Heger

Bullets

Key Details

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Oscillations discovered in archival X-ray data from 2006-2007 outburst of XTE J1701-462

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Signals occur from 3.5-5.6 millihertz frequency range

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Amplitudes around 1% indicate marginally stable nuclear burning origin

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First such discovery in a Z-type low mass X-ray binary

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Tenth source overall found to show this rare phenomenon

Explore the topics in this paper

neutron stars

quasi-periodic oscillations

rossi x-ray timing explorer

thermonuclear burning

x-ray binaries

AI generated summary

Discovery of millihertz oscillations in XTE J1701-462

This paper reports the discovery of rare millihertz quasi-periodic oscillations in the low mass X-ray binary XTE J1701-462. The oscillations were found by searching archival data from NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer satellite covering the 2006-2007 outburst of the source. The oscillations occur between 3.5-5.6 millihertz, have amplitudes around 1%, and are interpreted as arising from marginally stable nuclear burning on the surface of the neutron star. This is only the tenth source found to exhibit this phenomenon, providing new insights into thermonuclear burning processes in extreme environments.