# Spin Down of Pulsations in the Cooling Tail of an X-ray Burst from 4U 1636-53

## 1 Introduction

Millisecond oscillations in the X-ray brightness during thermonuclear bursts, “burst oscillations”, have been observed from six low mass X-ray binaries (LMXB) with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) (see Strohmayer, Swank & Zhang et al. 1998 for a recent review). Considerable evidence points to rotational modulation as the source of these pulsations (see for example, Strohmayer, Zhang & Swank 1997; Strohmayer & Markwardt 1999). Anisotropic X-ray emission caused by either localized or inhomogeneous nuclear burning produces either one or a pair of hot spots on the surface which are then modulated by rotation of the neutron star. A remarkable property of these oscillations is the frequency evolution which occurs in the cooling tail of some bursts. Recently, Strohmayer & Markwardt (1999) have shown that the frequency in the cooling tail of bursts from 4U 1728-34 and 4U 1702-429 is well described by an exponential chirp model whose frequency increases asymptotically toward a limiting value. Strohmayer et. al (1997) have argued this evolution results from angular momentum conservation of the thermonuclear shell, which cools, shrinks and spins up as the surface radiates away the thermonuclear energy. To date, only frequency increases have been reported in the cooling tails of bursts, consistent with settling of the shell as its energy is radiated away.

In this Letter we report observations of a decreasing burst oscillation frequency in the tail of an X-ray burst. We find that an episode of spin down in the cooling tail of a burst observed on December 31, 1996 at 17:36:52 UTC (hereafter, burst A, or the “spin down” burst) from 4U 1636-53 is correlated with the presence of an extended. In §1 we present an analysis of the frequency evolution in this burst, with emphasis on the spin down episode. In §2 we present time resolved energy spectra of the spin down burst, and we investigate the energetics of the extended tail. Throughout, we compare the temporal and spectral behavior of the spin down burst with a different burst observed on December 29, 1996 at 23:26:46 UTC (hereafter, burst B) which does not show either a spin down episode nor an extended tail of emission, but which is similar to the spin down burst in most other respects. We conclude in §3 with a summary and discussion of the spin down episode and extended emission in the context of an additional, delayed thermonuclear energy release which might re-expand the thermonuclear shell and perhaps account for both the spin down and the extended tail of thermal emission.

## 2 Evidence for Spin Down

Oscillations at 580 Hz were discovered in thermonuclear bursts from 4U 1636-53 by Zhang et al. (1996). More recently, Miller (1999a) has reported evidence during the rising phase of bursts of a significant modulation at half the 580 Hz frequency suggesting that 580 Hz is twice the neutron star spin frequency and that a pair of antipodal spots produce the oscillations. Here we focus on a burst from 4U 1636-53 which shows a unique decrease in the $`580`$ Hz oscillation frequency. To study the evolution in frequency of burst oscillations we employ the $`Z_n^2`$ statistic (Buccheri et al. 1983). We have described this method previously, and details can be found in Strohmayer & Markwardt (1999). We first constructed for both bursts A and B a dynamic “variability” spectrum by computing $`Z_1^2`$ as a function of time on a grid of frequency values in the vicinity of 580 Hz. We used 2 second intervals to compute $`Z_1^2`$ and started a new interval every 0.25 seconds. This variability spectrum is very similar to a standard dynamic power spectrum, however, the $`Z_1^2`$ statistic allows for a more densely sampled frequency grid than a standard Fast Fourier Transform power spectrum. The results are shown in Figure 1 (bursts A and B are in the top and bottom panels, respectively) as contour maps of constant $`Z_1^2`$ through each burst. The contour map for the spin down burst (top panel) suggests that the oscillation began with a frequency near 579.6 Hz at burst onset, reappeared later in the burst after “touchdown” of the photosphere at an increased frequency, $`580.7`$ Hz, but then beginning near 11 seconds dropped to $`579.6`$ Hz over several seconds. For comparison, we also show in Figure 1 (bottom panel) a similar variability spectrum for burst B which also shows strong oscillations near 580 Hz, but shows no evidence of a similar spin down episode.

To investigate the evolution of the oscillation frequency more quantitatively we fit a model for the temporal evolution of the frequency, $`\nu (t)`$, to the 4.5 second interval during which the oscillation is evident in the dynamic variability spectrum (Figure 1, top panel). Our model is composed of two linear segments, each with its own slope, joined continuously at a break time $`t_b`$. This is similar to the model employed by Miller (1999b), and has four free parameters, the initial frequency, $`\nu _0`$, the two slopes, $`d_\nu ^1`$ and $`d_\nu ^2`$, and the break time, $`t_b`$. We used this frequency model to compute phases $`\varphi _{t_j}`$ for each X-ray event, viz. $`\varphi _{t_j}=_0^{t_j}\nu (t^{})𝑑t^{}`$, where $`t_j`$ are the photon arrival times, and then varied the model parameters to maximize the $`Z_1^2`$ statistic. We used a downhill simplex method for the maximization (see Press et al. 1989). Figure 2 compares $`Z_1^2`$ vs. parameter $`\nu _0`$ for the best fitting two segment model (solid histogram) and a simple constant frequency model ($`\nu (t)=\nu _0`$, dashed histogram). The two segment model produces a significant increase in the maximum $`Z_1^2`$ of about 40 compared with no frequency evolution, and it also yields a single, narrower peak in the $`Z_1^2`$ distribution. The increase of 40 in $`Z_1^2`$, which for a purely random process is distributed as $`\chi ^2`$ with 2 degrees of freedom, argues convincingly that the frequency drop is significant. We note that Miller (1999b) has also identified the same spin down episode during this burst using a different, but related method. The best fitting two segment model is shown graphically as the solid curve in Figure 1 (top panel).

## 3 Time history, spectral evolution and burst energetics

A comparison of the 2 - 20 keV time history of the spin down burst with other bursts from the same observations reveals that this burst is also unique in having an extended tail of thermal emission. This is well illustrated in Figure 3, which compares the 2 - 20 keV time histories of the spin down burst and burst B. To further investigate the energetics of the thermal burst emission we performed a spectral evolution analysis. We accumulated energy spectra for varying time intervals through both bursts. Using XSPEC we fit blackbody spectra to each interval by first subtracting a pre-burst interval as background, and then investigated the temporal evolution of the blackbody temperature, $`kT`$, inferred radius, $`R_{BB}`$ and bolometric flux, $`F`$. In most intervals we obtained acceptable fits with the blackbody model. The results for both bursts are summarized in Figure 4, We have aligned the burst profiles in time for direct comparison. Both bursts show evidence for radius expansion shortly after onset in that $`kT`$ drops initially and then recovers. Their peak fluxes are also similar, consistent with being Eddington limited. Out to about 7 seconds post-onset both bursts show the same qualitative behavior, after this, however, the spin down burst (solid curve) shows a much more gradual decrease in both the blackbody temperature $`kT`$ and the bolometric flux $`F`$ than is evident in burst B. We integrated the flux versus time profile for each burst in order to estimate fluences and establish the energy budget in the extended tail. We find fluences of $`1.4\times 10^6`$ and $`5.1\times 10^7`$ ergs cm<sup>-2</sup> for bursts A and B respectively. That is, the spin down burst has about 2.75 times more energy than burst B. Put another way, most of the energy in the spin down burst is in the extended tail. In figure 4 we also indicate with a vertical dotted line the time $`t_b`$ associated with the beginning of the spin down episode based on our modelling of the 580 Hz oscillations. The spectral evolution analysis indicates that at about the same time the spin down episode began there was also a change in its spectral evolution as compared with that of burst B. This behavior is evident in figure 5 which shows the evolution of $`kT`$ (dashed curve) and the inferred blackbody radius $`R_{BB}`$ (solid curve) for the spin down burst. Notice the secondary increase in $`R_{BB}`$ and an associated dip in $`kT`$ near time $`t_b`$ (vertical dotted line). This behavior is similar to the signature of radius expansion seen earlier in both bursts, but at a weaker level, it suggests that at this time there may have been an additional thermonuclear energy input in the accreted layers, perhaps at greater depth, which then diffused out on a longer timescale, producing the extended tail. That this spectral signature ocurred near the same time as the onset of the spin down episode suggests that the two events may be causally related.

## 4 Discussion and Summary

The observation of thermonuclear bursts with extended tails is not a new phenomenon. Czerny, Czerny, & Grindlay (1987) reported on a burst from the soft X-ray transient Aql X-1 which showed a long, relatively flat X-ray tail. Bursts following this one were found to have much shorter, weaker tails. Fushiki et al. (1992) argued that such long tails were caused by an extended phase of hydrogen burning due to electron captures at high density ($`\rho 10^7`$ g cm<sup>-3</sup>) in the accreted envelope. Such behavior is made possible because of the long time required to accumulate an unstable pile of hydrogen-rich thermonuclear fuel when the neutron star is relatively cool ($`10^7`$ K) prior to the onset of accretion. This, they argued, could occur in transients such as Aql X-1, which have long quiescent periods during which the neutron star envelope can cool, and thus the first thermonuclear burst after the onset of an accretion driven outburst should show the longest extended tail. Other researchers have shown that the thermal state of the neutron star envelope, the abundance of CNO materials in the accreted matter, and variations in the mass accretion rate all can have profound effects on the character of bursts produced during an accretion driven outburst (see Taam et al. 1993; Woosley & Weaver 1985; and Ayasli & Joss 1982, and references therein). For example, Taam et al. (1993) showed that for low CNO abundances and cool neutron star envelopes the subsequent bursting behavior can be extremely erratic, with burst recurrence times varying by as much as two orders of magnitude. They also showed that such conditions produce dwarf bursts, with short recurrence times and peak fluxes less than a tenth Eddington, and that many bursts do not burn all the fuel accumulated since the last X-ray burst. Thus residual fuel, in particular hydrogen, can survive and provide energy for subsequent bursts. These effects lead to a great diversity in the properties of X-ray bursts observed from a single accreting neutron star. Some of these effects were likely at work during the December, 1996 observations of 4U 1636-53 discussed here, as both a burst with a long extended tail, as well as a dwarf burst were observed (see Miller 1999b).

The spin up of burst oscillations in the cooling tails of thermonuclear bursts from 4U 1728-34 and 4U 1702-429 has been discussed in terms of angular momentum conservation of the thermonuclear shell (see Strohmayer et al 1997; Strohmayer & Markwardt 1999). Expanded at burst onset by the initial thermonuclear energy release, the shell spins down due to its larger rotational moment of inertia compared to its pre-burst value. As the accreted layer subsequently cools its scale height decreases and it comes back into co-rotation with the neutron star over $``$ 10 seconds. To date the putative initial spin down at burst onset has not been observationally confirmed, perhaps due to the radiative diffusion delay, on the order of a second, which can hide the oscillations until after the shell has expanded and spun down (see, for example, Bildsten 1998). We continue to search for such a signature, however. Although the initial spin down at burst onset has not been seen, the observation of a spin down episode in the tail of a burst begs the question; can it be understood in a similar context, that is, by invoking a second, thermal expansion of the burning layers? The supporting evidence is the presence of spin down associated with the spectral evidence for an additional energy source, the extended tail, as well as the spectral variation observed at the time the spin down commenced (see Figure 5). Based on these observations we suggest that the spin down began with a second episode of thermonuclear energy release, perhaps in a hydrogen-rich layer underlying that responsible for the initial instability, and built up over several preceeding bursts. Such a scenario is not so unlikely based on previous theoretical work (see Taam et al. 1993, Fushiki et al. 1992). The observed rate of spin down, $`d_\nu ^2=1.01\times 10^3`$ s<sup>-1</sup>, interpreted as an increase in the height of the angular momentum conserving shell gives $`dr/dt(\mathrm{\Delta }\nu /2\mathrm{\Delta }T\nu _0)R5.25`$ m s<sup>-1</sup>, for a neutron star radius of $`R=10`$ km. Calculations predict increases in the scale height of the bursting layer on the order of 20-30 m during thermonuclear flashes (see Joss 1977; and Bildsten 1995). Based on this and the energy evident in the extended tail, the additional expansion of about 12 m does not appear overly excessive. If correct this scenario would require that the oscillation frequency eventually increase again later in the tail. Unfortunately the oscillation dies away before another increase is seen.

It is interesting to note that bursts from 4U 1636-53 do not appear to show the same systematic evolution of the oscillation frequency as is evident in bursts from 4U 1728-34 and 4U 1702-429 (see for example, Miller 1999b; and Strohmayer & Markwardt 1999). In particular, there is no strong evidence for an exponential-like recovery that is often seen in 4U 1728-34 and 4U 1702-429. Rather, in 4U 1636-53, when the burst oscillation frequency reappears after photospheric touchdown in many bursts it appears almost immediately at the higher frequency. In the context of a spinning shell this might suggest that the shell recouples to the underlying star more quickly than in 4U 1728-34 or 4U 1702-429. Interestingly, 4U 1636-53 is also the only source to show significant pulsations at the sub-harmonic of the strongest oscillation frequency, and this has been interpreted as revealing the presence of a pair of antipodal hot spots (see Miller 1999a). These properties may be related and could, for example, indicate the presence of a stronger magnetic field in 4U 1636-53 than the other sources.

Another physical process which could alter the observed frequency is related to general relativistic (GR) time stretching. If the burst evolution modulates the location in radius of the photosphere, then the rotation at that radius, as seen by a distant observer, is affected by a redshift such that, $`\mathrm{\Delta }r/R=(R/r_g)(1r_g/R)(11/(\nu _h/\nu _l)^2)`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ is the change in height of the photosphere, $`r_g=2GM/c^2`$ is the schwarzchild radius, and $`\nu _h/\nu _l`$ is the ratio of the highest and the lowest observed frequencies. If this were the sole cause of the frequency changes, then it would imply a height change for the photosphere of $`120`$ m, which is much larger than the increases predicted theoretically for bursting shells. Note that this effect works counter to angular momentum conservation of the shell, since increasing the height makes the frequency higher compared to deeper layers. Since the thicknesses of pre- and post-burst shells are on the order of 20 - 50 m, we estimate from the above that the GR correction amounts to about 10 - 20% of the observed frequency change, and, if the angular momentum conservation effect is at work, requires a modest increase in the height of the shell over that estimated non-relativistically.

We have reported in detail on the first observations of a spin down in the frequency of X-ray brightness oscillations in an X-ray burst. We have shown that this event is coincident with the ocurrence of an extended tail as well as a spectral signature which both suggest a secondary release of thermonuclear energy in the accreted layer. It is always difficult to draw conclusions based on a single event, however, if the association of spin down episodes with an extended X-ray tail can be confirmed in additional bursts this will provide strong evidence in support of the hypothesis that angular momentum conservation of the thermonuclear shell is responsible for the observed frequency variations during bursts. The combination of spectral and timing studies during bursts with oscillations can then give us a unique new probe of the physics of thermonuclear burning on neutron stars.

We thank Craig Markwardt and Jean Swank for many helpful discussions.      

## 5 Figure Captions

Figure 1: Dynamic variability spectra for bursts A (top) and B (bottom) from 4U 1636-53. Shown are contours of constant power $`Z_1^2`$ computed from 2 s intervals with a new interval every 0.25 s. The countrate vs. time in the PCA is also shown. For burst A, the two segment frequency evolution model is shown as the solid curve. The best fitting model parameters were; $`\nu _0=580.70`$ Hz, $`d_\nu ^1=9.0\times 10^5`$ s<sup>-1</sup>, $`d_\nu ^2=1.0\times 10^3`$ s<sup>-1</sup>, and $`t_b=10.86`$ s.

Figure 2: A plot of $`Z_1^2`$ vs. frequency parameter $`\nu _0`$ for the spin down burst (burst A).The solid curve shows the result for the best fitting two-segment frequency evolution model. The dashed curve was produced assuming no frequency evolution.

Figure 3: 2 - 20 keV light curves for bursts A (solid) and B (dashed) from 4U 1636-53. Notice the long, extended tail in burst A. The pre-burst and peak countrates were virtually the same for both bursts. The bursts were aligned in time to facilitate direct comparison.

Figure 4: Results of spectral evolution analysis for bursts A and B. The top panel shows evolution of the bolometric flux deduced from the best fitting black body parameters for bursts A (solid) and B (dashed). Note the long tail on burst A, and that the peak fluxes are consistent. The bottom panel shows the evolution of the black body temperature $`kT`$ for bursts A (solid) and B (dashed). The initial drop in $`kT`$ followed by an increase is a signature of radiation driven photospheric expansion. The dotted vertical line marks $`t_b`$, the break time which marks the onset of spin down (see discussion in text).

Figure 5: Evolution of the black body temperature $`kT`$ (dashed) and inferred radius $`R_{BB}`$ (solid) for the spin down burst (burst A). The dotted vertical line marks $`t_b`$, the break time which marks the onset of spin down (see discussion in text). The burst begins with an episode of photospheric radius expansion, marked by the simultaneous decrease in temperature and increase in radius. Notice the secondary signature of a weak radius expansion event near time $`t_b`$ (dotted vertical line).