At these hotspots the infalling gas can reach half the speed of light before it impacts the neutron star surface.
So much gravitational potential energy is released by the infalling gas, that the hotspots, which are estimated to about one square kilometer in area, can be ten thousand times, or more, as luminous as the Sun.
The neutron star is immersed in the wind and continuously captures gas that flows nearby.
The captured material forms a gaseous accretion disc and spirals inwards to ultimately fall onto the neutron star as in the binary system Cen X-3.
When the neutron star passes nearby or through the Be circumstellar disk, it will capture material and temporarily become an X-ray pulsar.
[1] Magnetars, isolated and highly-magnetised neutron stars, can be observed as relatively slow x-ray pulsars with periods of a few seconds.