Mass and Radius of Neutron Stars Constrained by Photospheric Radius Expansion X-ray Bursts

Abstract

Simultaneous measurement of mass and radius of a neutron star is important because it provides strong constraint on the equation of state for nuclear matter inside a neutron star. Type I X-ray Bursts (XRBs) that have been observed in low-mass X-ray binaries sometimes show photospheric radius expansion (PRE). By combining observed fluxes, X-ray spectra, and distances of PRE XRBs and using a statistical analysis, it is possible to simultaneously constrain the mass and radius of a neutron star. However, the mass and radius of a neutron star estimated in this method depends on the opacity of accreted material. We investigate the effect of the opacity on the mass and radius estimation by taking into account the cases that the hydrogen mass fraction of accreted material has narrowlydistributed values. We present preliminary results that are investigated with three different values of hydrogen mass fraction and compare our results with previous studies.