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Importance of electron-positron pairs on the maximum possible luminosity of the accretion columns in ULXs
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 February 2023
Abstract
One of the models explaining the high luminosity of pulsing ultra-luminous X-ray sources (pULXs) was suggested by Mushtukov et al. (2015). They showed that the accretion columns on the surfaces of highly magnetized neutron stars can be very luminous due to opacity reduction in the high magnetic field. However, a strong magnetic field leads also to amplification of the electron-positron pairs creation. Therefore, increasing of the electron and positron number densities compensates the cross-section reduction, and the electron scattering opacity does not decrease with the magnetic field magnification. As a result, the maximum possible luminosity of the accretion column does not increase with the magnetic field. It ranges between 1040 − 1041 erg s−1 depending only slightly on the magnetic field strength.
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- This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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- © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of International Astronomical Union
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