Accreting millisecond X-ray pulsars: 10 years of INTEGRAL observations

TL;DR

Over a decade, INTEGRAL significantly advanced the study of accreting millisecond X-ray pulsars by discovering new sources and analyzing their high-energy behavior, including timing and burst properties.

Contribution

This paper provides a comprehensive review of INTEGRAL's observations of AMXPs, highlighting new discoveries and insights into their X-ray emission and burst phenomena.

Findings

Discovered 3 new AMXPs with INTEGRAL

Analyzed high-energy lightcurves and burst properties

Enhanced understanding of AMXP behavior above 20 keV

Abstract

During the last 10 years, INTEGRAL made a unique contribution to the study of accreting millisecond X-ray pulsars (AMXPs), discovering three of the 14 sources now known of this class. Besides increasing the number of known AMXPs, INTEGRAL also carried out observations of these objects above 20 keV, substantially advancing our understanding of their behaviour. We present here a review of all the AMXPs observed with INTEGRAL and discuss the physical interpretation of their behaviour in the X-ray domain. We focus in particular on the lightcurve profile during outburst, as well as the timing, spectral, and thermonuclear type-I X-ray bursts properties.