Constraints on the mass and radius of neutron stars from X-ray observations

TL;DR

This paper reviews methods for determining neutron star mass and radius using X-ray observations, highlighting various techniques like burst analysis, pulse modeling, redshift measurement, and spectral fitting.

Contribution

It provides a concise overview of observational techniques for constraining neutron star properties from X-ray data.

Findings

Different X-ray methods can effectively measure neutron star mass and radius.

Each technique offers unique insights and limitations.

Combining methods improves accuracy of neutron star parameter estimates.

Abstract

This article gives a very brief introduction about measuring the mass and radius of neutron star from X-ray observations. The masses and radii of neutron stars can be determined from photospheric radius expansion bursts in low-mass X-ray binaries, X-ray pulse profile modeling in accreting X-ray pulsars, gravitational redshift measurement in low-mass X-ray binaries and thermal X-ray spectral fitting in quiescent low-mass X-ray binaries.