Papers › A Bayesian Approach to Matching Thermonuclear X-ray Burst Observations with Models
A Bayesian Approach to Matching Thermonuclear X-ray Burst Observations with Models
A. J. Goodwin, D. K. Galloway, A. Heger, A. Cumming, Z. Johnston
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We present a new method of matching observations of Type I (thermonuclear) X-ray bursts with models, comparing the predictions of a semi-analytic ignition model with X-ray observations of the accretion-powered millisecond pulsar SAX J1808.4--3658 in outburst. We used a Bayesian analysis approach to marginalise over the parameters of interest and determine parameters such as fuel composition, distance/anisotropy factors, neutron star mass and neutron star radius. Our study includes a treatment of the system inclination effects, inferring that the rotation axis of the system is inclined (69⁺⁴₋₂)° from the observers line of sight, assuming a flat disc model. This method can be applied to any accreting source that exhibits Type I X-ray bursts. We find a hydrogen mass fraction of 0.57^(+0.13)_(-0.14) and CNO metallicity of 0.013^(+0.006)_(-0.004) for the accreted fuel is required by the model to match the observed burst energies, for a distance to the source of 3.3^(+0.3)_(-0.2) kpc. We infer a neutron star mass of 1.5^(+0.6)_(-0.3) M_⊙ and radius of 11.8^(+1.3)_(-0.9) km for a surface gravity of 1.9^(+0.7)_(-0.4)×10¹⁴ cm s⁻² for SAX J1808.4--3658.
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