The Rapid Burster and its X-ray bursts: extremes of accretion and thermonuclear burning

X-ray bursts originate from accreting neutron stars (NSs) in X-ray binaries (XRBs). They come in two flavours: thermonuclear bursts are due to the sudden runaway burning of the material accreted on the surface; accretion bursts signal a sudden change in the mass accretion rate, leading to enhanced emission in the innermost regions of the accretion flow. While thermonuclear bursts have been observed from 105 NSs as of writing, accretion bursts remain enigmatically confined to only two sources. One of them, the Rapid Burster (RB), is the only one to have shown both types of bursts. My PhD project has dealt with studying this extraordinary source to understand the reason behind its uniqueness and, through that, answer open questions regarding both thermonuclear burning and unstable accretion.