We present two simultaneous NICER and NuSTAR observations of the ultra-compact X-ray binary (UCXB) candidate SLX 1735-269 while the source was in two different spectral states. Using various reflection modeling techniques, we find that xillverCO, a model used for fitting X-ray spectra of UCXBs with high carbon and oxygen abundances is an improvement over relxill or relxillns, which instead contains solar-like chemical abundances. This provides indirect evidence in support of the source being ultra-compact. We also use this reflection model to get a preliminary measurement of the inclination of the system, i=57−7+23 degrees. This is consistent with our timing analysis, where a lack of eclipses indicates an inclination of i<80∘. The timing analysis is otherwise inconclusive, and we can not confidently measure the orbital period of the system.
@article{arxiv.2401.12371,
title = {Investigating the Ultra-Compact X-ray Binary Candidate SLX 1735-269 with NICER and NuSTAR},
author = {David Moutard and Renee Ludlam and Malu Sudha and Douglas Buisson and Edward Cackett and Nathalie Degenaar and Andrew Fabian and Poshak Gandhi and Javier Garcia and Aarran Shaw and John Tomsick},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2401.12371},
year = {2024}
}
Comments
12 Pages, 8 Figures, 4 Tables, Accepted for Publication in ApJ