X-ray bursts and superbursts - recent developments

Abstract

The past decade and a half has seen many interesting new developments in X-ray burst research, both observationally and theoretically. New phenomena were discovered, such as burst oscillations and superbursts, and new regimes of thermonuclear burning identified. An important driver of the research with present and future instrumentation in the coming years is the pursuit of fundamental neutron star parameters. However, several other more direct questions are also in dire need of an answer. For instance, how are superbursts ignited and why do burst oscillations exist in burst tails? We briefly review recent developments and discuss the role that MAXI can play. Thanks to MAXI's large visibility window and large duty cycle, it is particularly well suited to investigate the recurrence of rare long duration bursts such as superbursts. An exploratory study of MAXI data is briefly presented.