TL;DR
This paper reviews advances in studying X-ray binaries, highlighting new techniques using irradiated emission lines to determine the masses of neutron stars and black holes, thereby improving understanding of these collapsed objects.
Contribution
It introduces novel methods exploiting high-excitation emission lines from irradiated companion stars to measure stellar masses in X-ray binaries.
Findings
Dynamical masses for neutron stars and black holes have been obtained.
New techniques improve mass determination despite accretion disc luminosity.
Enhanced understanding of collapsed objects in X-ray binaries.
Abstract
X-ray binaries are excellent laboratories to study collapsed objects. On the one hand, transient X-ray binaries contain the best examples of stellar-mass black holes while persistent X-ray binaries mostly harbour accreting neutron stars. The determination of stellar masses in persistent X-ray binaries is usually hampered by the overwhelming luminosity of the X-ray heated accretion disc. However, the discovery of high-excitation emission lines from the irradiated companion star has opened new routes in the study of compact objects. This paper presents novel techniques which exploits these irradiated lines and summarises the dynamical masses obtained for the two populations of collapsed stars: neutron stars and black holes.
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