Neutron Star Radius-to-mass Ratio from Partial Accretion Disk Occultation as Measured through Fe Kα Line Profiles

2020

We present a new method to measure the radius-to-mass ratio (R/M) of weakly magnetic, disc-accreting neutron stars by exploiting the occultation of parts of the inner disc by the star itself. This occultation imprints characteristic features on the X-ray line profile that are unique and are expected to be present in low mass X-ray binary systems seen under inclinations higher than ~65 degrees. We analyse a NuSTAR observation of a good candidate system, 4U 1636-53, and find that X-ray spectra from current instrumentation are unlikely to single out the occultation features owing to insufficient signal-to-noise. Based on an extensive set of simulations we show that large-area X-ray detectors o…