Be/X-ray binaries

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

Gamma-ray Binaries

Recent observations have shown that some compact stellar binaries radiate the highest energy light in the universe. The challenge has been to determine the nature of the compact object and whether the very high energy gamma-rays are ultimately powered by pulsar winds or relativistic jets. Multiwavelength observations have shown that one of the three gamma-ray binaries known so far, PSR B1259−63...

Gamma-ray bursts from X-ray binaries

A weakly magnetized (∼ 107G) neutron star, slowly spun up by accretion in an X-ray binary, crosses the instability boundary for r-mode instability at P=1–2 msec. The amplitude of the oscillation, which initially increases only at the spinup time scale, is secularly unstable due to the negative temperature dependence of the viscosity in neutron star matter, and diverges after a few hundred years...

Gamma-Ray Emission from X-Ray Binaries

We summarize the current observational picture regarding high-energy emission from Galactic X-ray binaries, reviewing the results of the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory mission. We speculate on the prospects for the GLAST era.