MG12 - Talk detail
 

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Abstract

Discovery of quiescent low-mass X-ray binaries in globular cluster: a step to constrain the dense matter equation of state.

Constraining the dense matter equation of state motivates astrophysical observations to measure the radii and masses of neutron stars (NSs). Low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) are routinely used to measure the radii of NSs. The observation of these systems in quiescence (qLMXBs) is one of the possible method to obtain precise radius measurements using hydrogen atmosphere spectral models. The dominant source of uncertainty is the distance to qLMXBs. Therefore, globular clusters (GCs) are the ideal places to look for such objects. I will present the results of a program of XMM-Newton observations of GCs, designed to identify qLMXBs based on their X-ray spectra. Increasing the population of known GC qLMXBs is a first essential step before obtaining the high signal to noise observations needed to measure the radii of the NSs.

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