THE DISTANCE, MASS, AND RADIUS OF THE NEUTRON STAR IN 4U 1608–52

Low mass X-ray binaries that show thermonuclear bursts are ideal sources for constraining the equation of state of neutron star matter. The lack of independent distance measurements for most of these sources, however, prevents a systematic exploration of the masses and radii of the neutron stars, hence limiting the equation of state studies. We present here a measurement of the distance to the low mass X-ray binary 4U1608−52 that is based on the study of the interstellar extinction towards the source. We start by modeling the individual absorption edges of the elements Ne and Mg in the X-ray spectrum. We then combine this information with a measurement of the run of reddening with distance using red clump stars and determine the distance to the source as 5.16 ±0.72 kpc. Finally, using the measured distance and the hydrogen column density, we model time resolved X-ray spectra of Type-I X-ray bursts observed from the source to measure the mass and the radius of the neutron star. We find the mass and the radius of the neutron star to be M = 1.84 ±0.09 M ⊙ and R = 9.83 ±1.24 km, respectively. This result is in accordance with several multi-nucleon equations of state. Subject headings: stars: neutron- X-ray: individual (4U1608−52)

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