Wind accretion: Theory and Observations

A review of wind accretion in HMXB is presented. We focus on different regimes of quasi-spherical accretion onto a NS: supersonic (Bondi) accretion, which takes place when the captured matter cools down rapidly and falls supersonically towards the NS magnetosphere, and subsonic (settling) accretion which occurs when the plasma remains hot until it meets the magnetospheric boundary. The two regimes are separated by a limit in X-ray luminosity at about 4 10^{36} erg/s. In subsonic accretion, which works a hot quasi-spherical shell must form around the magnetosphere, and the actual accretion rate onto the NS is determined by the ability of the plasma to enter the magnetosphere due to the Rayleigh-Taylor instability. Two regimes of subsonic accretion are possible, depending on the plasma cooling mechanism (Compton or radiative) near the magnetopshere. The transition from the high-luminosity regime with Compton cooling to the low-luminosity (L_x < 3times 10^35 erg/s) regime with radiative cooling can be responsible for the onset of the off states repeatedly observed in several X-ray pulsars, such as Vela X-1, GX 301-2 and 4U 1907+09. The triggering of the transition may be due to a switch in the X-ray beam pattern in response to a change in the optical depth in the accretion column with changing luminosity. We also show that in the settling accretion theory, bright X-ray flares (10^{38}-10^{40} ergs) observed in SFXT may be produced by sporadic capture of magnetized stellar-wind plasma. At sufficiently low accretion rates, magnetic reconnection can enhance the magnetospheric plasma entry rate, resulting in copious production of X-ray photons, strong Compton cooling and ultimately in unstable accretion of the entire shell. A bright flare develops on the free-fall time scale in the shell, and the typical energy released in an SFXT bright flare corresponds to the mass of the shell.

Do we see accreting magnetars in X-ray pulsars?

Strong magnetic field of accreting neutron stars ($10^{14}$ G) is hard to probe by X-ray spectroscopy but can be indirectly inferred from spin-up/spin-down measurement in X-ray pulsars. The existing observations of slowly rotating X-ray pulsars are discussed. It is shown that magnetic fields of neutron stars derived from these observations (or lower limits in some cases) fall within the standard $10^{12}$-$10^{13}$ G range. Claims about the evidence for accreting magnetars are critically discussed in the light of recent progress in understanding of accretion onto slowly rotating neutron stars in the subsonic regime.

Theory of wind accretion

A review of wind accretion in high-mass X-ray binaries is presented. We focus attention to different regimes of quasi-spherical accretion onto the neutron star: the supersonic (Bondi) accretion, which takes place when the captured matter cools down rapidly and falls supersonically toward NS magnetospghere, and subsonic (settling) accretion which occurs when plasma remains hot until it meets the magnetospheric boundary. Two regimes of accretion are separated by an X-ray luminosity of about $4times10^{36}$ erg/s. In the subsonic case, which sets in at low luminosities, a hot quasi-spherical shell must be formed around the magnetosphere, and the actual accretion rate onto NS is determined by ability of the plasma to enter the magnetosphere due to Rayleigh-Taylor instability. We calculate the rate of plasma entry the magnetopshere and the angular momentum transfer in the shell due to turbulent viscosity appearing in the convective differentially rotating shell. We also discuss and calculate the structure of the magnetospheric boundary layer where the angular momentum between the rotating magnetosphere and the base of the differentially rotating quasi-spherical shell takes place. We show how observations of equilibrium X-ray pulsars Vela X-1 and GX 301-2 can be used to estimate dimensionless parameters of the subsonic settling accretion theory, and obtain the width of the magnetospheric boundary layer for these pulsars.

Hyperflares of SGRs as an engine for millisecond extragalactic radio bursts

We propose that the strong millisecond extragalactic radio burst (mERB) discovered by Lorimer et al. (2007) may be related to a hyperflare from an extragalactic soft gamma-ray repeater. The expected rate of such hyperflares, $sim$ 20 - 100 d$^{-1}$ Gpc$^{-3}$, is in good correspondence with the value estimated by Lorimer et al. The possible mechanism of radio emission can be related to the tearing mode instability in the magnetar magnetosphere as discussed by Lyutikov (2002), and can produce the radio flux corresponding to the observed $sim$ 30 Jy from the mERB using a simple scaling of the burst energy.