Sensitivity study for the impact of thermonuclear reaction rates in X-ray bursts for different low-mass X-ray binary systems

We have investigated the sensitivity of models of X-ray bursts in accreting neutron stars to the uncertainty of thermonuclear reaction rates. The roles of nuclear reactions driving the X-ray bursts can be affected by the details of the mass accretion process, influencing the relative importance of various nuclear reaction pathways such as the α-p process and the rp-process. We modeled X-ray bursts using single-zone nuclear reaction network calculations that explored a wide range of values for the material composition and rate of the mass accretion process, and evaluated the impact of individual reaction rates on the nuclear energy generation and nucleosynthesis. We find a strong dependence of the role of individual reactions on the composition of the material at the time of ignition of the X-ray burst. We will present the results of the sensitivity study and discuss how the impact of different nuclear reactions corresponds to the properties of observed low-mass X-ray binary star systems.