English

Discovery of an Outbursting 12.8 Minute Ultracompact X-Ray Binary

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2019-08-23 v1 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Abstract

We report the discovery of OGLE-UCXB-01, a 12.8 minute variable object located in the central field of Galactic bulge globular cluster Djorg 2. The presence of frequent, short-duration brightenings at such an ultrashort period in long-term OGLE photometry together with the blue color of the object in Hubble Space Telescope images and the detection of moderately hard X-rays by Chandra observatory point to an ultracompact X-ray binary system. The observed fast period decrease makes the system a particularly interesting target for gravitational-wave detectors such as the planned Laser Interferometer Space Antenna.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1908.08186,
  title  = {Discovery of an Outbursting 12.8 Minute Ultracompact X-Ray Binary},
  author = {P. Pietrukowicz and P. Mroz and A. Udalski and I. Soszynski and J. Skowron},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1908.08186},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

full OGLE light curve is available at http://www.astrouw.edu.pl/ogle/ogle4/OGLE-UCXB-01/