The many facets of accreting X-ray pulsars

by Peter Kretschmar (ESA)

Tuesday 24 Jan 2012, 13:15 → 14:15 Europe/Stockholm

Accreting X-ray pulsars are binary systems containing a highly magnetized neutron star and a donor star loosing mass via stellar winds, the Be mechanism or Roche-Lobe overflow. They are among the best observed objects of X-ray astronomy with a rich observational phenomenology, but the understanding of the actual physics behind this richness is still largely superficial.

The seminar presents work done on several different aspects of such systems: variability and accretion mechanisms; pulse period evolution and the interaction of accreted matter with the magnetosphere; structure of the accretion column; formation of cyclotron scattering features.

The speaker is the ESA mission manager for the International Gamma-ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL).