http://arxiv.org/abs/1312.5449
In accreting neutron star (NS) low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB) systems, NS accretes material from its low-mass companion via a Keplerian disk. In a viscous accretion disk, inflows orbit the NS and spiral in due to dissipative processes, such as the viscous process and collisions of elements. The dynamics of accretion flows in the inner region of an accretion disk is significantly affected by the rotation of NS. The rotation makes NS, thus the space-time metric, deviate from the originally spherical symmetry, and leads to gravitational quadrupole, on one hand. On the other hand, a rotating NS drags the local inertial frame in its vicinity, which is known as the rotational frame-dragging effect. In this paper, we investigate the motion of accretion flows in the inner region of accreting NS/LMXBs and demonstrate that the rotational effects of NS result in a band of quasi-quantized structure in the inner region of the accretion disk, which may account for frequencies seen in X-ray variability, such as quasi-periodic oscillations, and can be a potential promising tool of investigation for photon polarization.
Fri, 20 Dec 13
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