BURSTING NEUTRON STARS; .

Thermonuclear burning in the matter accumulatedon the surface of an accreting neutron star isunstable under certain conditions, which leads topowerful explosions also called Type I X-raybursts. This book covers the theory ofspectral formation in the atmospheres of neutronstars during these violent events as well as itsapplication to observational data on X-ray bursts. The main goal of the presented study is a propermeasurement of the fundamental properties forneutron stars. We take bothanalytical and numerical approaches to the problem ofradiative transfer in X-ray illuminated atmosphereswhich account for all crucial physical factors suchas Comptonization, free-free absorption and emission.We apply our models to the data collected with NASA'sRossi X-ray Timing Explorer mission in order toconstrain neutron star masses and radii for fiveX-ray burster 4U 1728-34, 4U 1820-30, Cygnus X-2, EXO0748-676 and GS 1826-24. The developed neutron starmass-radius measurement method has a great potentialfor application to new and archival X-ray data. Itcan provide scientists with a vital information onvarious aspects of physics of compact objects.