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arXiv · astro-ph/0612685

Accreting isolated neutron stars

N. R. Ikhsanov·P. L. Biermann
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Abstract

Accretion of interstellar material by a magnetized, slowly rotating isolated neutron star is discussed. We show that the average persistent X-ray luminosity of these objects is unlikely to exceed 4x10^26 erg/s. They can also appear as X-ray bursters with the burst duration of ~30 minutes and repetition time of \~10^5 yr. This indicates that the number of the accreting isolated neutron stars which could be observed with recent X-ray missions is a few orders of magnitude smaller than that previously estimated. Our findings argue against models in which the magnetic field of neutron stars is assumed to decay exponentially on a time scale shorter than 500 Myr.

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N. R. Ikhsanov, P. L. Biermann. 2006-12-22. Accreting isolated neutron stars. https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0612685

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