English

On the outburst amplitude of the soft X-ray transients

Astrophysics 2015-06-24 v1

Abstract

We find a strong correlation between the optical outburst amplitude Delta V and orbital period P_{orb} for the soft X-ray transient sources with orbital periods less than 1 day. By fitting the observed values for 8 X-ray transients we determine an empirical relation that can be used to predict the orbital period of an X-ray transient given only its outburst amplitude: \Delta V= 14.36 - 7.63\log P_{orb}(h). For periods less than 12 hrs we determine a relation for the absolute magnitude of the accretion disc during outburst, which then allows us to estimate the distances to the sources.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/9710105,
  title  = {On the outburst amplitude of the soft X-ray transients},
  author = {T. Shahbaz and E. Kuulkers},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/9710105},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

5 pages Latex, 1 figure, to appear in MNRAS as a letter