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| Paper: |
Stellar Wind Accretion in High-Mass X-Ray Binaries |
| Volume: |
422, High Energy Phenomena in Massive Stars |
| Page: |
57 |
| Authors: |
Negueruela, I. |
| Abstract: |
Recent discoveries have confirmed the existence of a large population of X-ray sources fueled by accretion from the stellar wind of an OB supergiant. Such systems are powerful laboratories to study many aspects of astrophysics. Over the last decades, the physics of accretion in these systems has been the subject of extensive research, mainly through numerical methods. In spite of this effort, large uncertainties remain in our understanding, reflecting the complexity of the physical situation. A crucial issue that remains open is the possible formation of accretion disks. Though the spin evolution of neutron stars in these systems suggests that angular momentum is, at least occasionally, accreted, and many observational facts seem to require the existence of disks, computational results do not favor this possibility. In this brief review, I will summarizes some of the open questions in this area. |
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