Outburst Phenomena in X-Ray Binaries

X-ray States of Black Hole Binaries in Outburst

We continue to probe the properties of stellar-size black holes and the physics of blackhole accretion using bright X-ray transients. Progress has been made in the recognizing that the three states of active accretion are related to different physical elements that may contribute radiation: the accretion disk, a jet, and a compact corona. Each of these states offers potential applications for i...

Forty Years of X-Ray Binaries

In 2012 it was forty years ago that the discovery of the first X-ray binary Centaurus X-3 became known. That same year it was discovered that apart from the High-Mass X-ray Binaries (HMXBs) there are also Low-Mass X-ray Binaries (LMXBs), and that Cygnus X-1 is most probably a black hole. By 1975 also the new class of Be/X-ray binaries was discovered. After this it took 28 years before ESAs INTE...

X-ray Binaries

Echoes in X-ray Binaries

We present a method of analysing the correlated X-ray and optical/UV variability in X-ray binaries, using the observed time delays between the X-ray driving lightcurves and their reprocessed optical echoes. This allows us to determine the distribution of reprocessing sites within the binary. We model the time-delay transfer functions by simulating the distribution of reprocessing regions, using...

Correlation between Hard X-ray Peak Flux and Soft X-ray Peak Flux in the Outburst Rise of Low Mass X-ray Binaries

We have analyzed Rossi X-ray timing explorer (RXTE) pointed observations of the outbursts of black hole and neutron star soft X-ray transients in which an initial low/hard state or ‘island’ state, followed by a transition to a softer state, was observed. In three sources, the black hole transient XTE J1550-564, the neutron star transient Aquila X-1 and a quasi-persistent neutron star low mass X...