Figure 18

Figure 18: The artist’s view of a low-mass X-ray binary. The companion of a neutron star fills its Roche lobe and loses its mass via plasma flow through the inner Lagrangian point. Due to its angular momentum, plasma orbits around the neutron star, forming an accretion disk. Gradually losing angular momentum due to viscosity within the accretion disk, plasma approaches the neutron star and eventually falls onto its surface. Figure by T. Piro.