Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Astron. Space Sci.
Sec. Cosmology
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fspas.2024.1477677
This article is part of the Research Topic Neutron Stars and Quark Stars Inside Out View all 5 articles

Search for thermonuclear burst oscillations in the Swift/BAT data set

Provisionally accepted
  • 1 Xiangtan University, Xiangtan, China
  • 2 International Space Science Institute (ISSI), Bern, Bern, Switzerland

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    This study comprehensively analyzes type I X-ray bursts observed by Swift/BAT from 2005 to April 2024 to search for X-ray burst oscillations (XBOs) in neutron star low-mass X-ray binaries. XBOs, periodic signals detected within type I X-ray bursts, typically range from 11 to 620 Hz and are often observed in the soft X-ray data of these bursts. Using the high-sensitivity and precise timing capabilities of the Swift/BAT, we found 50 type I X-ray bursts from 37 neutron star low-mass X-ray binaries. We conducted a detailed timing analysis of these bursts. For sources with known burst oscillation frequencies, our findings largely corroborate previous studies. However, many sources displayed low confidence levels in the oscillation signals, with Z 2 1 values between 10 and 20. For sources without known oscillation/spin frequencies, we utilized FFT analysis to search for signals across a broad frequency range. This approach revealed potential oscillation signals, with several bursts showing significance levels exceeding 3σ,

    Keywords: Neutron star binaries, Neutron star (NS), X-ray burst, Burst oscillation, X-ray timing

    Received: 08 Aug 2024; Accepted: 23 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Li, Li, Pan and Falanga. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Zhaosheng Li, Xiangtan University, Xiangtan, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.