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J. A. Tomsick, D. M. Gelino (CASS/UCSD), J. P. Halpern (Columbia University), P. Kaaret (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA)
Over the past few years, the X-ray sensitivities of Chandra and XMM-Newton have greatly improved our ablility to study quiescent low-mass X-ray binary neutron star transients. In quiescence, these systems are faint, with typical luminosities of 1E32 to 1E33 erg/s, and, in most cases, the energy spectra have a thermal component that is thought to be blackbody emission from the neutron star surface. Quiescent X-ray measurements are important for placing constraints on neutron star cooling, understanding differences between neutron stars and black holes at low luminosities, comparing millisecond X-ray pulsars to neutron stars without pulsations, and possibly constraining the neutron star radius. We will report on the results of a Chandra observation of XTE J2123-058. This neutron star transient is an especially good target as the neutron star mass and source distance are relatively well-constrained, and the level of extinction is low.
JAT acknowledges partial support from Chandra award number GO2-3051X issued by the Chandra X-ray Observatory Center, which is operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for and on behalf of NASA under contract NAS8-39073.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: jtomsick@ucsd.edu
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35#5
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.