Speaker
Description
X-ray pulsars (XRPs) provide a unique laboratory for studying accretion under extreme magnetic fields and strong-gravity conditions. Most are found in high-mass X-ray binaries, particularly systems with Be-star companions (BeXRBs), where episodic mass transfer can trigger bright X-ray outbursts reaching luminosities of ≳1E+38 erg/s. These systems probe the physics of magnetically channeled accretion and are closely connected to the study of the most luminous accreting binaries, including ultraluminous X-ray sources.
Despite decades of observations, key questions remain open. Major outbursts often have duty cycles of decades, meaning that each new X-ray observatory has the opportunity to catch events in systems that remained inactive during previous missions. With its large effective area and survey capabilities, Wide Field Imager (WFI) will significantly expand the accessible population of accreting pulsars, enabling studies of systems in nearby galaxies such as M31 that are currently too faint for detailed characterization with observatories like XMM-Newton.
At the same time, X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU) will provide high-resolution spectroscopy of the accretion environment in magnetized neutron stars. The detection and characterization of narrow absorption and emission features associated with disk winds and magnetospheric outflows will offer new insights into the structure of the inner accretion flow and the physics of super-Eddington accretion.
In this talk, I will discuss how NewAthena can advance the study of accreting pulsars through three complementary avenues: catching rare outbursts in long-duty-cycle systems, extending studies to larger distances, and probing accretion-driven outflows with high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy.
