On the Bimodal Spin Period Distribution of Be/X-ray Pulsars

Abstract

It has been reported that there are two populations of Be/X-ray pulsars, with the pulse period distribution peaked at $\sim$ 10 s and $\sim$ 200 s, respectively. A possible explanation of this bimodal distribution is related to different accretion modes in Be/X-ray binaries. In this work, we investigate the spin evolution of Be/X-ray pulsars based on the magnetically threaded accretion disk model. Compared with previous works, we take into account several distinct and important factors of Be/X-ray binaries, including the transient accretion behavior and possible change of the accretion disk structure during quiescence. We demonstrate that current Be/X-ray pulsars are close to the spin equilibrium determined by the balance of spin-up during outbursts and spin-down during quiescence, and that the observed bimodal distribution can be well reproduced by the equilibrium spin periods with reasonable input parameters.