The SMC X-ray binary SXP4.78 : a new Type II outburst and the identification and study of the optical counterpart
| Autor: | Monageng, Itumeleng, Coe, Malcolm, Townsend, Lee, Buckley, David, McBride, Vanessa, Roche, Paul, Kennea, Jamie, Udalski, Andrzej, Evans, Phil |
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| Rok vydání: | 2019 |
| Předmět: | |
| Druh dokumentu: | Working Paper |
| DOI: | 10.1093/mnras/stz723 |
| Popis: | SXP4.78 was originally discovered in 2000 as a pulsar in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) by the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) but it was not spatially located at that time. A new detection in 2018 with the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory during a Type II outburst permitted its position to be accurately located and its optical counterpart identified. We report X-ray and optical monitoring covering epochs before and during the outburst. Using photometric data we show the long-term variability of the Be disc where we present flux and colour changes associated with the disc growth and decay over a period of ~6000 days. We show evidence of disc growth during the recent outburst through an increase in the H-alpha equivalent width and photometric flux. Period analysis was performed using both optical photometric and spectroscopic data, but with no significant detection of an orbital period. A modest periodic signature of 2.65 days was detected from the OGLE I band data, however, but we attribute that to the non-radial pulsations (NRPs) of the Be star. We also obtained a blue spectrum from the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) which permits us to classify the spectral type as B0.5 IV-V. Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS after minor revision |
| Databáze: | arXiv |
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