The Influence of Thermonuclear Bursts on Polar Caps of the Accreting X-Ray Millisecond Pulsar MAXI J1816-195

• Published in: Astrophysical journal. Letters Vol. 966; no. 1; p. L3
• Main Authors: Ji, Long, Ge, Mingyu, Chen, Yupeng, Li, Zhaosheng, Wang, Peng-Ju, Zhang, Shu, Zhang, Shuang-Nan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Austin The American Astronomical Society 01-05-2024; IOP Publishing
• Subjects: Accretion disks; Bursts; Corona; Hard X-rays; Low-mass x-ray binary stars; Millisecond pulsars; Neutron stars; Phase lag; Polar caps; Pulsars; X-ray bursts; X-rays
• ISSN: 2041-8205; 2041-8213
• DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ad3c29

We report accretion-powered pulsations for the first time during thermonuclear bursts in hard X-rays, which were observed with Insight-HXMT in 2022 during the outburst of the accreting X-ray millisecond pulsar MAXI J1816-195. By stacking 73 bursts, we detected pulse profiles in 8–30 and 30–100 keV during bursts, which are identical to those obtained from the persistent (nonburst) emission. On average, no significant phase lag was observed between burst and persistent pulse profiles. In addition, we suggest that the interaction with burst photons can be used as a direct diagnostic to distinguish contributions from the hot plasma near polar caps and the corona around the accretion disk, which are highly degenerate in their spectral shapes.