Stellar Wind Disruption by an Orbiting Neutron Star: High X-Ray Luminosity
A tiny neutron star orbits incessantly around a massive star with a diameter a million times larger than its own. The high luminosity of the massive star drives a strong wind from its surface. The neutron star crashes through this wind at over 300 kilometers per second. The gravity and X-ray luminosity of the neutron star act to disrupt the wind, producing an extended wake of dense gas trailing behind the neutron star. This simulation, in the reference frame of the neutron star, shows conditions of high X-ray luminosity, in which there is a weak bow shock, no oscillation, and a large photoionization wake. The numerical simulations depicted here were computed using the Cray X-MP 48 at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
A simulation of the wake of a high luminosity neutron star in orbit around a massive star
Video slate image reads "For high X-ray luminosity we find:
- weak bow shock
- no oscillation
- large photoionization wake".
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Scientific Visualization Studio
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Animators
- John Blondin (NASA/GSFC)
- Alan McConnell (NASA)
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Scientists
- Ian Stevens (NASA/GSFC)
- Tim Kallman (NASA/GSFC)
- Bruce Fryxell (The University of Arizona)
- Ron Taam (Northwestern University)
- John Blondin (NASA/GSFC)
Release date
This page was originally published on Tuesday, July 10, 1990.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 2:00 PM EDT.
Series
This visualization can be found in the following series:Papers used in this visualization
Blondin, J. M., Kallman, T. R. , Fryxell, B. A., Taam, R. E., Hydrodynamic Simulations of Stellar Wind Disruption by a Compact X-ray Source, ApJ, 356, 591-608, 1990