A study of Be/X-ray binaries in the SMC and the Milky Way
A study of Be/X-ray binaries in the SMC and the Milky Way
This thesis presents the results of monitoring of 14 Be/X-ray binary systems in the Galaxy over ~9 years with the BATSE instrument on-board CGRO, and 46 in the SMC over ~8 years using PCA-RXTEdata from a weekly survey program. The reduction pipeline for these data we perfected and new code was written to analyse the products. A technique is presented for subtracting the contribution of pulsations to a light curve, enabling the cleaning of power spectra with many sources and the precise measurement of power for all the harmonic components of a pulsar’s profile. application of these techniques has permitted the production of pulse amplitude light curves for the SMC systems, timing analysis of which has returned a large number of orbital ephemeredes, which in turn has allowed for a better estimate of the spin/orbit relationship parameters. Two new quantities are defined for transient outburst systems: δorb is the difference between the predicted and actual orbital periods expressed as a percentage, and is found to be inversely proportional to the magnetic fields of the pulsars in the SMC, but no such relation is seen for the Galactic systems. Xod is the number of outbursts per orbit, which we find to be strongly correlated with the orbital period for both galaxies. Based on the distribution of Xod we propose a classification scheme that would categorize Be/X-ray binary systems as Class Ia, Ib or II. A dependence of the X-ray luminosity on Xod is also found for SMC systems, but is weaker for Galactic ones. We present 21 possible new pulsars in the SMC for which orbital ephemerides have also been calculated. A multi-set technique for folding light curves is discussed and used to create pulse profiles for all the SMC pulsars, qualitatively showing that in most cases both fan and pencil beams are required together in order to explain the observed shapes. Lastly, two pulsars: SXP46.4 and SXP165 were found to be misidentifications of SXP46.6 and SXP169 respectively.
University of Southampton
Galache Vielba, José Luis
08b07f93-752d-4800-92a2-22ee7b8a38c9
2006
Galache Vielba, José Luis
08b07f93-752d-4800-92a2-22ee7b8a38c9
Galache Vielba, José Luis
(2006)
A study of Be/X-ray binaries in the SMC and the Milky Way.
University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.
Record type:
Thesis
(Doctoral)
Abstract
This thesis presents the results of monitoring of 14 Be/X-ray binary systems in the Galaxy over ~9 years with the BATSE instrument on-board CGRO, and 46 in the SMC over ~8 years using PCA-RXTEdata from a weekly survey program. The reduction pipeline for these data we perfected and new code was written to analyse the products. A technique is presented for subtracting the contribution of pulsations to a light curve, enabling the cleaning of power spectra with many sources and the precise measurement of power for all the harmonic components of a pulsar’s profile. application of these techniques has permitted the production of pulse amplitude light curves for the SMC systems, timing analysis of which has returned a large number of orbital ephemeredes, which in turn has allowed for a better estimate of the spin/orbit relationship parameters. Two new quantities are defined for transient outburst systems: δorb is the difference between the predicted and actual orbital periods expressed as a percentage, and is found to be inversely proportional to the magnetic fields of the pulsars in the SMC, but no such relation is seen for the Galactic systems. Xod is the number of outbursts per orbit, which we find to be strongly correlated with the orbital period for both galaxies. Based on the distribution of Xod we propose a classification scheme that would categorize Be/X-ray binary systems as Class Ia, Ib or II. A dependence of the X-ray luminosity on Xod is also found for SMC systems, but is weaker for Galactic ones. We present 21 possible new pulsars in the SMC for which orbital ephemerides have also been calculated. A multi-set technique for folding light curves is discussed and used to create pulse profiles for all the SMC pulsars, qualitatively showing that in most cases both fan and pencil beams are required together in order to explain the observed shapes. Lastly, two pulsars: SXP46.4 and SXP165 were found to be misidentifications of SXP46.6 and SXP169 respectively.
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Published date: 2006
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Local EPrints ID: 466009
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/466009
PURE UUID: 54248efe-2c81-42a8-8212-83eafdd148a4
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Date deposited: 05 Jul 2022 03:58
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 20:28
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Author:
José Luis Galache Vielba
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