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Monday, November 9th 2009
12:15 pm:
Cosmology Lunchtime Seminar
in 435 Physics
Speaker: Laurens Keek, University of Minnesota
Subject: X-ray bursts with too short recurrence times
Thermonuclear flashes in the outer layers of accreting neutron stars are observed as X-ray bursts. These bursts are instrumental in learning more about the inner parts of the neutron star: the crust and core. Usually, a neutron star accretes matter for at least several hours, before enough fuel is accumulated to trigger a flash. In rare cases, however, bursts are observed with recurrence times as short as ten minutes. We discuss the clues we gathered to try to solve this decades-old mystery.
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